


An empty shell

by alchimie



Series: between the devil and the deep blue sea [1]
Category: Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Character Death, CrankGameplays - Freeform, Darkiplier - Freeform, Demon possession, Demons, Established Relationship, M/M, Markiplier - Freeform, Paranormal, So much angst, Unus Annus, alcohol use, good dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:00:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchimie/pseuds/alchimie
Summary: After Unus Annus ends, Mark isn't quite acting like himself. Ethan tries his best to stay positive while his partner pulls away more and more, but it seems that something bigger might be going on whenever Mark locks himself in his recording room.
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Series: between the devil and the deep blue sea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122671
Comments: 38
Kudos: 151





	1. One year

**Author's Note:**

> Had this idea playing around in my head after the live stream, and I thought it might be fun to bring to life. Not to mention there is a big need for more quality Crankiplier content. Enjoy!

Today is November 14th, 2020. 

Judging by the glaring sunlight shining onto my vulnerable face while I attempt to rest peacefully, it must be late into the morning. Desperate to capture a few more precious minutes of sleep, I roll over onto my stomach and bury my face into the warm cotton of the pillow resting underneath me. I breath deeply the fresh, floral scent of the fabric softener, content to imagine myself laying in a field of generic flower smells. However, I know that my attempts are probably fruitless - I never seem to fall back asleep once I’m woken up in the morning, whether by sunlight, noisy partners, or an assault of dog kisses. 

Still, my head recoils at the mere thought of getting up out of bed already. Sure, it’s probably a lot closer to being afternoon than morning, but that doesn’t negate the fact that I had almost been up to see the sunrise this morning. Our 12-hour, emotion-packed stream had thoroughly knocked the sails out of me well before we ended at midnight. Then came heartfelt congratulations with everyone after the final button had been pressed. After that came me and Amy insisting on helping everyone strike down what we could of the set, as much as Mark seemed anxious to get home. Which was odd, considering the fact that by the time we made it back home hours later, he was the one that wanted to stay up longer and longer. My memory past that point starts to fade a bit, but I almost certainly remember falling asleep on the back patio next to Mark. When I think back, I can almost remember him picking me up. Poor guy - I know I’m not the heaviest person out there and Mark isn’t the weakest, either, but it’s a long journey up the stairs. 

_ He really does love you _ , I think to myself, smiling a little into the depths of the downy pillow. That thought brings my attention back to the present moment, noticing a distinct absence on the bed next to me. Where there should be a Mark sized lump next to me, I feel emptiness. 

I turn my head out from the comfortable abyss of the pillow and blink my eyes open slowly. Sure enough, I am alone in the bed. 

It’s not unheard of for Mark to be up before me. Honestly, more days than not he is the first one up and about. I have never been great at keeping a schedule, which has made it really helpful to live with someone that actually seems like a real adult. His complete absence does feel a little unexpected, however. 

One, most days the “adultier” half of our partnership will nudge me awake as soon as he wakes up, sometimes just wanting to complain about a weird dream he had or sometimes asking if he should make coffee for two or even sometimes just to make sure that I don’t sleep in too late and end up sleeping past a call for shooting. As annoying as it can be to so often be disturbed - especially when 6 months ago I could just sleep in whenever I wanted and Kathryn wouldn’t bat an eye much less shake me awake - being woken up to him every morning has become a nice comfort. It’s even nicer on those lucky occasions where I wake up to him still asleep, arm wrapped around me in almost a possessive way, as if he’s subconsciously afraid something is going to come out from the dark and get me in the middle of the night. 

And two, I noticed Mark being especially clingy last night. The second that we had gotten home, he wouldn’t leave my side for even a second. After the live stream, Mark’s disposition of content and acceptance seemed to drop some. Not to say that he didn’t still have that sense of peaceful calm that had washed over him in those last few hours of the stream, but something about it seemed different. Mark was talking  _ so _ much and his words had a strange weight to them. Honestly, I kept getting a little anxious he might propose or something - every other word out of his mouth was intensely emotional in a way we don’t usually speak to one another. It’s not like we aren’t emotional with each other - we are pretty sappy guys that cry pretty easily (especially me, but we aren’t pointing fingers here, now are we?). The kind of emotionality Mark had last night was next level, though. 

Taking in a deep inhale, I stretch my arms overhead and peek down at the ground. I notice both Chica and Spencer laying on the ground together. Another odd occurrence - usually the two of them would be up as soon as Mark got up. Chica, the big oaf that she is, never goes long without orbiting around her father and resident favorite-person-in-the-whole-wide-world. Spencer is still getting used to his new “roommate” in many ways, but usually just the mere presence of commotion is enough to get him curious and excited. 

Maybe they’re both just pooped. After all, we probably kept them up last night from our late night conversations as well. I can recall them sitting outside with us for most of the time we were up together. 

Chica is the first to notice me awake and alert. She must not be that exhausted because she quickly jumps to her feet, tail wagging enthusiastically in a way that always indicates one thing: she has to go out and she has to go out now. 

I laugh softly, taking that as the final sign that it’s time to get up. I hop to my feet, locating the discarded pair of sweatpants from the night before. I was quick to change into comfortable clothes when I got home, but Mark is a constant radiator in bed which causes me to usually strip down to only boxers - if I hadn’t stripped down to nothing already. A few steps further I also find the t-shirt from the previous night - er, morning. I cover my shame quickly to appease the frantic pitter patter of Chica’s paws on the hardwood floor. Spencer is up by this point too, getting excited from Chica’s excitement. 

“Okay, okay, time to let the kiddos out, I get it,” I say as I wrestle past my furry children to get to the door. 

The house feels especially cold as I step out into the hallway. I only pay it mind for a second before I am being shepherded by the four-legged fiends towards the door. 

“I know, I know!” I laugh, following them towards the stairs. Mark’s recording room door is closed as I pass by, but I don’t hear anything from inside it. Weird. 

Accompanied by my small canine pack, I walk out to the back door. I feel like Moses parting the Red Sea as I push up the sliding glass door which leads my companions to the freedom that is their morning bathroom break. After they have pushed through, I step out into the cool November air. I’m approaching my fifth winter in Los Angeles, but it still feels strange to me to not feel a bitter Northern wind attacking my face the second I step outside past Halloween. 

I sit down on the pavement where Mark and I had been last night. Being back in this position almost brought me back into those moments, and I close my eyes for a second.

*

When we got back home, all I wanted to do was just collapse onto the ground. Physically, mentally, and spiritually, I felt like I gave up every once of what I had during the final stream. Not in the way I have felt before right in the midst of a depressive episode or period of grief. Deep in my stomach, I felt a special kind of completeness having this beautiful weight lifted from my shoulders. But regardless, I was fucking dead tired. 

Mark had been holding my hand for most of the last half-hour. He kept one hand on the steering wheel and one hand clutching mine for the whole drive home, and he only allowed us to be separated for a second after exiting the car before grabbing me again. Any other time, I might’ve made a joke about it at his expense, but I was so sleepy that it just felt nice having him guide me back into the house. 

When we walked past the stairs, I started to take a step in their direction, but Mark gently tugged me away. “I’m - I’m not ready to go to bed just yet,” he said, in a voice that was uncharacteristically subdued. “Will you stay up with me?”

I groaned. 

“Please?” Something in his eyes was being so genuine about wanting me there, that I sighed and gave in pretty easily.

“Okay, but only for a few minutes, mister. I’m exhausted.”

Mark smiled. “That’s fine. As much time as I can get with you.” 

He squeezed my hand before leading me out towards the back patio. Despite being shrouded in the darkness of the night, being back here brings to mind so many memories from this last year. Countless videos that were just excuses to play with Chica and/or Spencer. Building dog houses, terrible Ikea furniture, doomed boats. Painful paintball episodes that would come up in mostly playful arguments constantly. That damn, cursed pee sauna. Even the moments that were disgusting or upsetting made my heart flutter deep inside knowing I got to have this whole year with Mark. Despite my initial protest to any path other than our warm bed, ending the year on this patio felt right. 

Mark sat down first, straight onto the cold pavement. There were chairs they could drag over, sure, but this spot was often one they would go to late at night like this. It had started out the first few times as laziness and gradually developed into a habit. I wouldn’t complain, though, because it made it all the easier to plop down beside him and rest my head on his shoulder. As soon as I did, I felt his lips plant a soft kiss into my hair. 

Mark sighed into my hair before pulling back just slightly to speak. “I can’t believe it’s over. It’s really over.”

In response, I snaked my arm around his waist, pulling myself further into his embrace. “We really did it.”

“Ethan.” Mark’s voice dropped a little, becoming quiet and soft. “I wish I had the time to tell you everything. To just tell you that you - you mean the world to me, you know?”

I chuckled, nudging at his side. “Well, the channel is over, but that just means we have all the time in the world, don’t we? Shower me with praises.”

Mark let out a laugh, too, but there was less force behind it. “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right. All the time in the world.” There was a slight pause after that. “Ethan, I know I don’t say it enough, but thank you. Thank you for being here with me and for sticking it through this last year to create something this beautiful with me. Just, thank you so much for always being there for me, you know? I know I was never the best boss starting out or the best partner this last year or even the best boyfriend this last year, either. I know I push so much and I ask way too much from the people around me and sometimes it feels like I rush things. I know I can be a bit temperamental, too - ”

“I thought this was going to be praising me, not roasting yourself.”

I get a more genuine laugh out of the older man this time.

“What I was getting to before being so rudely interrupted is, well, you have been so forgiving and supportive and really just. More than I could ever have wished for. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend this last year than to be making videos with the person I love most every single day.” I looked up toward his face, and I saw tears start to linger at the corners of his eyes. “I am so grateful for all the time we got to spend together this last year. Even when Covid and quarantine got in the way - I’m grateful that you moved in so we could just be together completely no matter what. I’m grateful you stuck by me for every second, even when things got rough time and time again.” 

“Well, as cringey as it was, I will always be grateful for doing a backflip for you.”

This earned me another laugh. “Bob’s gift to me. I don’t think I have ever been given a better gift in the history of ever.” Our eyes met, and I could see the first lingering tear finally cascade down his cheek. “I love you, Ethan Nestor. More than I could ever explain. Meeting you has been the best part of all of this.”

The way he starred in my eyes, the deep conviction in the words he was speaking, it all struck me directly in my core. Where Mark appeared to just be letting a few tears pass by, his sincere words open up the floodgates. In an instant, tears began to race each other down my cheeks. “I love you, too. I love you so much. I owe so much to you.”

Mark shook his head at that. “No, no, no. I know you’ve said that before, but you need to hear this. You worked hard. I may have extended a hand, but you always had it in you to be something great.” The older man looked away from me in that moment, staring at the pavement in front of him. “You always had the talent, the spark, the drive. You deserve everything good that comes to you. I’m just happy I could help in the way that I could. You were always full of so much potential. I wish I had been like that, too.”

A lull in conversation followed. Several minutes passed where we remained curled up into each other’s warmth, staring ahead at the backyard that had become the set of so many shenanigans this year. When conversation restarted, we began a sleepy back-and-forth recounting all the memories from this last year. That went on for what must have been hours, with brief intermissions of Mark getting deep in thought or regressing back to heavy sentiment. I fought the good fight trying to stay up, but my will grew weaker and weaker as time went on. The last image I can recall of my eyes being open was when I saw the light start to peek out in the east. 

*

My daydream is interrupted by Spencer barreling into me, planting kisses on my cheeks since I was low in enough to the ground for easy access. This could mean two things: either he just really loves me right now and/or he hasn’t been fed yet so he’s super hungry. 

I bring myself to my feet, dusting off the back of my sweats. I’m sure they’re covered in whatever dirt residue was left behind. You can’t power wash  _ all _ your sins away, after all. 

“I guess Mark must not have fed you two when he woke up,” I muse, opening the door and waving Chica over as well from where she is rolling around happily on the grass.

I can relate to Spencer as he stares up at me expectantly while I pull out the big bag of doggy breakfast. Remembering that food is a thing, I notice my own stomach rumbling softly. I scoop the dry food into each dog’s bowl before going to the fridge to assess what was available for human consumption. 

There aren’t exactly a plethora of options. With all the excitement of this past week, basic human needs like groceries had definitely fallen on the wayside. However, there are enough eggs left to feed two grown men, so that might be the best option for now. I pull out the carton and then make my way upstairs to finally address my awake partner. 

When I walk up the stairs and into the second floor hallway, I almost hear whispering. The voice doesn’t sound like Mark’s though, but the noise quickly passes once my footsteps on the hardwood of the stairs echo down the hall. Silence.

The door to Mark’s recording room remains closed. This is a clear indicator that he is inside the room - if he were just out for a run or maybe making a grocery trip, he would have left the door open. He doesn’t tend to keep it closed when away, unlike me being constantly worried that a dog is going to find a way to eat an entire computer somehow. 

I can’t shake the feeling in the pit of my stomach that something is off. Mark is never this quiet this early in the morning. He wouldn’t have ever woken up and not let the dogs out or feed them. He wouldn’t have ever woken up without bugging me a thousand times to get up with him. He wouldn’t be sitting in his room completely silent at this hour with the door closed. It just didn’t add up. 

I knock on the door once, holding my breath while I await an answer.

Nothing.

I knock on the door a second time. I hear some rustling from the other side of the door, but that is all.

I knock on the door a third time. 

The door swings open violently, causing me to jump back. Silently, I chastise myself for after a decade of playing horror games still being scared by something so simple as that. After all, it’s just Mark. 

“What?” he demands, eyes dark and face blank.

Blinking, I pause to take this in. Mark seems honestly annoyed by me knocking on his door. Maybe I’m ultra sensitive to this after a night of him going on about love and good memories, but my chest tightens and I swallow back the hurt.

“Is everything okay? You’ve just been really quiet and kinda in your own space.”

Mark’s response is curt. “I’m working.” He tries to close the door, but I reach out to grab the edge before he can.

“I’m making breakfast,” I offer. “I just wanted to know if you wanted some. I was going to scramble some eggs.”

“I’m fine.”

A second passes as I stare into his dark brown eyes. Maybe it’s the lighting in the hallway, but they almost look completely black. 

“Dude, seriously, is everything okay? You’re acting weird. You’ve been super quiet and you didn’t even feed the dogs.”

Another second passes. I continue to stare into Mark’s eyes, as if I could find a reason for the abnormal behavior inside them. His blank expression doesn’t falter. 

“I’m sorry if you think I’m acting weird,” he says in a low monotone,” But I have a lot I want to catch up on today. I would prefer if you could leave me alone.” 

Hearing that definitely hurts a lot. Regardless, I decide this isn’t the hill I want to die on right now, so I give a little nod and let go of the door. It shuts immediately, and I take in a slow breath to calm myself before heading back down the stairs. 

I try to think about the situation objectively as I make eggs for one. I know in the past I have had patterns of jumping to conclusions that have caused nothing but pain and distress for me and others. This is something I’ve worked on a lot in therapy. I can almost hear my therapist’s voice right now in the back of my mind:

_ What might be some other causes for his behavior? _

I draw in a deep breath.

We just finished the most time consuming project of our careers. We spent all of yesterday on camera. It is logical to assume he is tired. He was probably still hyped up on adrenaline when he came home last night.

Sometimes Mark gets cranky - no pun intended - when he is tired. Maybe this isn’t always the way that he reacts, but maybe it really is best to leave him alone right now. 

There is no proof to think Mark loves me any less today than he did yesterday. He might be reclusive right now, but we have spent basically every waking hour with each other this past week. Two things can be true: he can love me as much as I love him and also need some time away from me. He is human, too. 

He is human, too. 

It helps me to have this internal dialogue, but I cannot shake the feeling that something is off. I plate my breakfast and sit down at the table, but the food goes largely uneaten as I stare picking at it. 


	2. Paul is dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Like what? Like I’m a different person?”
> 
> Hesitantly, I nod.
> 
> “You’re being fucking crazy.”

The biggest fight we ever had occurred after Mark punched the wall. 

Two days of non-stop recording had tensions understandably high. The struggle between maintaining the balance of a daily-video channel and a mere months-old romantic relationship had brought tensions even higher. The icing on top of this clusterfuck of a cake was the fact that we are both way too competitive when it comes to physical activities. If I had paid closer attention, I would have registered how Mark’s hands were shaking while he gripped onto the fitness bike. If I had paid closer attention, I would have registered how my own heart was beating faster with each passing second. There was a volcano on the verge of erupting long before his fist went flying into the white flesh of the wall. 

When it happened in the moment, we cut the film instantly. Time seemed to stop completely for a minute while Mark stared at the wall and I processed what had just happened. I wanted to scream and I got a sense that he did, too, but because we had Evan there filming us, we tried to keep it civil as I brought in the first aid kit and did what I could to bandage up his knuckles in the moment. There was a clear air of “we will talk later” that had to be put on the back burner so that we could finish shooting. After each of us took five minutes to just be angry in separate areas as we each “cleared our minds”, we mustered up what we needed to film the short apology and then finish the video. Evan knew not to linger around too much longer after filming was over. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to sense the tension in the air. 

In hindsight, I can take total responsibility for a lot of what was going on. Mark was clearly getting stressed from our strict schedule, and me doing as well as I was in an area where Mark always assumed he was so adept (especially with how much he had gotten into fitness this last year or so) definitely was pushing buttons deep inside my partner. I was getting carried away with the bit. Whenever I look back on the video, I cringe inside with every word I shouted through the megaphone. If the competitive nature of the video premise was pushing buttons in Mark, I was slamming my whole fist onto the entire keyboard with every joke I tried to make. Even so, seeing Mark getting angry enough to punch a wall shook me deep down. 

After Evan left, Mark and I each took turns in the shower, prolonging the inevitable. At this point, I was not living in the house with him, but I had spent enough time over that the shower was free use to me. There were also plenty of sweatpants and extra t-shirts that were also welcome to me. There are always perks to being the smaller boyfriend. 

Mark showered first. I was quick to hop in when he was done, taking my sweet time soaking in the hot stream and completely fogging up every mirror and window. I knew the second I was alone in a room long enough with him, I would start to burst, but my fear of conflict led me to avoid that for as long as I could. I stayed in the shower until the burning hot water finally ran cold, and then I took my careful time picking out my favorite pair of his sweatpants - one of the earlier cloak releases topped with a Game Grumps t-shirt that had to be at least three years old. When there was no more ambling around that I could do, I walked back into the workout room where Mark was standing in front of his hole. 

“Admiring your work?” My tone was thickly sardonic.

Mark barely acknowledged the comment outside of a curt and half-hearted chuckle.

“Are you scared of me now?” he asked in a cautious, testing tone, still looking ahead at the injured wall.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not scared of you. I didn’t feel in danger. I’m just fucking furious right now.”

My memory is murky when it comes to the actual contents of the fight. I know it ramped up to several fingers pointed at one another, shouts echoing through the halls until we started to lose our breath. It was weirdly cathartic - we had almost two months worth of built up frustration from each video so far that we were slinging at each other. After probably a half hour, the shouting moved away from direct accusations to general frustrations and then finally the frustration dissipated into the real feeling we both had inside: sadness. Sadness that our beautiful idea was letting out so much of our ugly sides. Sadness that we were already at this point in a relationship that was just booming. Sadness that we were wasting our night being upset when this was our first time to relax all week. 

After a full hour of our back and forth, we found ourselves sitting on the ground, backs pressed to the wall with the break in it. A foot of space remained between us, but we were calmed down enough to be speaking in normal volumes. 

“We can’t keep pushing ourselves like this,” Mark sighed. 

I nodded. “You’re right. I’m - I’m sorry. You know I didn’t like how you reacted, but I shouldn’t have egged you on like that. I’m really sorry”

Mark shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’ve been so focused on working so hard to create the best videos we can and not take a second of this year for granted. I let that out on you today, and that’s not fair.” He looked over at me, reaching out to place his hand on my knee. “I’m not going to act like you definitely didn’t get on my rough side, but I also know I need to be better about communicating when I’m at my limit. Life is too short for me to be holding in my emotions like that, especially when they just end in me punching walls and shouting.” His hand on my knee squeezed gently. “Besides, even if I didn’t care about you as much as I do, I also know that I dug myself into this Ethan hole by publicly announcing to do a whole year of videos with your dumb ass.” 

I laughed softly, reaching over to nudge at him. It felt good after two hours of passive-aggression and not-so-passive-aggression to finally be able to laugh. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, with a carefully sincere tone. “From this point on, I promise to be open and honest when I’m feeling frustrated. Sounds good?”

“How about we both promise to be open and honest - period?”

A pause followed that comment. Mark smiled at me once his short deliberation ended. “Promise.” 

He leaned over and kissed me. 

“Can I be open and honest right now?”

My eyes narrowed. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Even if you can be annoying as hell, I still love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Three Mile Mark.”

*

I wake up to the sound of my phone buzzing aggressively. I try to ignore whoever is calling me this early in the morning, digging my head deep underneath the pillow. The caller is persistent, however, calling back not once, not twice, but three times. All attempts at ignoring my phone are futile as the small box continues to buzz and buzz to the point that I think it might just explode. Sighing, I reach over to blindly grasp for the phone while simultaneously digging my head out from the crevice between my pillow and the mattress. Without my glasses or contacts, I have to pull the phone up close to read the words.

“Mark’s Mom”

Why is  _ Mark’s mom _ calling me?

I answer the phone and am met with a barrage of concerned mom-isms. The combination of Sunok’s frantic rambling along with her accent makes it hard for me to piece apart clearly what is going on, but as time goes on I start to make sense of the situation.

“Mark hasn’t talked to you?”

“No, not since you finished the show.”

I blink. It’s been almost two weeks since Unus Annus ended now. 

“Has he texted you or anything?”

“No. Is he okay?”

Honestly, I don’t know. Since that first day after the stream, he has become practically a ghost in our home. I never see him for more than a few seconds at a time. I wake up and he is in his recording room. I make breakfast, and he never wants anything. I make coffee, and he never wants any. I walk past his room, and he is always dead silent. I work on my own videos, and he disappears to go God knows where. I go to sleep late into the evening, staying up as long as I can with my body full of anxiety, and he arrives at some point long after I have given up and passed out. I try to talk to him, to confront him or just to say hi, but he insists that he is fine and that he is busy. In the morning, I spend at least an hour in bed after I have woken up wondering if I have done something wrong or, please God forbid, Mark is doing something wrong. 

I never notice Mark in bed. I don’t know if he’s been sleeping in his recording room or just not sleeping at all. I also never notice him eating anything, or even leaving plates in the sink. When I confront him about not eating, he insists he  _ has _ and that he’s  _ fine _ and that I should stop treating him like a child. After all, he is the older one of us. He can take care of himself. He doesn’t need me breathing down his neck constantly. Then he shuts the door and goes back to his void.

So, I don’t exactly know if he is okay, but there’s no way in hell I could tell that to her.

“Yeah, he’s been fine. He’s just been, uh, really busy lately catching up on his own stuff after the channel.”

“I thought he was taking a break after,” she says, her voice sounding even more concerned. “I thought that meant he was coming home to visit me.”

My heart hurts when I hear a slight break in the woman’s voice. 

Mark is a lot of things, but a slacker son has never been one of them. Sure, he didn’t call his mom every single day or anything like that, but it seemed like at least twice a week if not more he would be Facetiming her while she excitedly told him about whatever her dogs had been up to that day or he would be painfully conversing with her in Korean to try and practice. It’s one thing for Mark to be ignoring me, his boyfriend, for the past few weeks, but to be ignoring his mom? It didn’t make any sense at all. 

“Here, I’ll talk to him about it, okay? Maybe something’s wrong with his phone or something. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

I try to smile to make my words sound more convincing, but I know I don’t have a whole lot of conviction behind my words. Regardless, she thanks me and hangs up, seeming at least content to know that Mark was still breathing. 

“Jesus, man, what’s gotten into you?” I whisper as I stare at my phone for a second before placing it to the side.

Mark’s mom wasn’t the first person to contact me showing some concern. Amy had reached out to me a week ago saying that Mark wasn’t responding to her texts. Wade had reached out to me five days ago saying that Mark had totally ditched out on the stream that he, Bob, and Sean had been planning. Mark can be kind of a shut in sometimes, especially relative to me, but it truly sounds like Mark is shutting out every single person he is close to. 

It’s getting harder to find good excuses for his actions. Mark’s been so cold to everyone, not just me. I don’t know if that is relieving or not. 

I hop out of bed, with my sweatpants and shirt still on due to the lack of Mark-radiation next to me at night. I never realized I could miss having his sweat on me all night, but I do. 

The typical post-Unus Annus day plays out. I take out the dogs that have had their legs crossed for hours and then give them their late breakfast. I eat my own alone and drink coffee alone. I miss the days of coming down stairs to Mark brewing a fresh pot of coffee for the both of us. I miss sitting down beside him, our knees touching slightly as we discuss the plans for the day. I miss seeing his messy bed-head hair hanging over his eyes as he looks over at me with that smile. I miss the way he would sneak up on me when I was doing dishes to “scare” me by coming up and wrapping his arms around my waist. I miss the coffee breath kisses, the laughter, the casual touches, the flirtation over breakfast, the morning sex to follow, the smiles, the love. I miss having my person from sun up to sun down. 

These days, I feel like I’m living alone in an empty cage. 

Chica sits down beside me as I mull over the last drops of coffee in my mug. She rests her head on my lap and looks up at me with her big, sad brown eyes. She misses her person, too. 

I guess I’m not totally alone in this cage, then.

I sigh and give her a few gentle scratches behind her ears. It’s unlike Mark to ignore me, his friends, and his family, but it’s especially unlike Mark to ignore his dog. 

_ I’m going to get to the bottom of this, buddy, I swear.  _ I say these words in my head as if somehow I could telepathically communicate them to the golden retriever. 

She stares up at me blankly. 

I discard the coffee mug in the sink before looking up towards the stairs. Trying to speak with Mark has just gotten more exhausting with every attempt, but I know after the phone call with his mom, I need to at least try again. Taking in a deep breath, I try to mentally prepare myself.

When I get to the door, I am surprised to see him opening the barrier before I even get a chance to knock. 

“Yes?” 

Taken aback from his sudden appearance, I stumble over my words briefly. “Oh, I, uh. I wanted to talk to you about - stuff.”

A beat.

“Yes?”

I chew on the inside of my lip nervously before speaking. “Your mom called this morning. She’s been trying to reach you.”

“Great, thanks for the update, secretary.”

The “joke” doesn’t come off with Mark’s usual sarcasm. His tone tastes bitter as it hits my ears. 

“Mark, can I please just come in for a second? I want to talk. Like, for real this time.” 

_ I miss you, so much. _

He stares at me for a tense moment. “Fine.” The door opens all the way, much to my surprise.

I haven’t looked into the room in days. Even when Mark is gone, he has gotten into a strange habit of closing and locking the recording room as if purposefully trying to keep me from going inside. I am shocked to see that the space appears clean and tidy, every wire in place and not a single crumb or dust bunny to be seen. Mark never once has had the space looking this immaculate. 

The only thing I notice on his desk that is out of place is what appears to be a deep scarlet paperweight to the left of his keyboard. 

“What is that?” I ask, pointing towards the foreign object.

He doesn’t even look at the object before answering me: “A gift from a friend.”

“Which friend got you that?”

“What did you want to talk about, Ethan?” It’s clear that he does not want to address the object on his desk. As much as I want to push forward, I know right now I need to pick my battles and finding out the contents of his desk is pretty low on my list of things to do today. 

Mark is glaring daggers at me as I try to find the right words to address him. I toy with my fingers as I start to speak, feeling suddenly very small next to the older man. “Do you remember that time that we talked after you punched the hole in the wall?”

He cocks his head to the side, some of the annoyance dropping from his face and being replaced by an inkling of curiosity. “Yes, of course I do. What about it?”

“Well, do you remember what we promised each other?”

“I’ve told you time and time, Ethan, I am fine. I will tell you if something is going on, but I’m very busy right now. There’s a lot of things I want to do. I’m trying to catch up on my own videos and you know I’m starting to plan ahead for Heist 2.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I say, trying to muster up confidence to not walk out in defeat once more. “But when your mom called she - she said you haven’t been answering her calls. At all. Everyone else has been saying that, too. It’s just not like you to completely go AWOL like that. It’s like you’re --”

Mark lets out a forced laugh. “Like what? Like I’m a different person?”

Hesitantly, I nod.

“You’re being fucking crazy.”

A wave of anger swells up in my chest. Mark has called me a lot of things, but he has never called me crazy. 

“Me crazy? You’re the one locking yourself in your room all day.” I take in a calculated inhale and exhale, trying to stay in check. I can’t get too ahead of myself, as much as I really want to with every fiber of my soul. I came in here with a purpose. “Look, I don’t want to fight about this right now. I’m really worried about you and so is your mom. Even if you refuse to talk to me, you should at the very least call her, okay? She deserves better than that.”

I deserve better, too, but again - I must pick my battles. 

Mark takes a step towards me, his eyes looking black as he cocks his head. I feel a strange sense of discomfort, almost like I want to recoil when he comes closer. 

“Fine,” he says flatly. “I’ll call her.”

“O-okay. Good. That’s… good.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting as I stand there in silence looking at him. Part of me wants to rush up to him, wrap my arms around him, and squeeze him tight until he snaps out of whatever bizarre mood this is. Part of me wants to fall to my knees in front of him and beg until he finally admits that something is wrong or forgives me for whatever unknown transgression I have made against him. Part of me wants him to just stop staring at me like that - like he couldn’t care less about me - and kiss me until I can’t breathe anymore and whisper in my ear that everything is alright and that he loves me and that this was all a cruel bit he took too far. 

“Are you happy now?”

I snap out of my day dreams. With nothing else left inside me, I reluctantly nod.

“Good. Now can I be alone, please?”

Before I can even protest, I am being guided back outside of the room into the cold hallway. The door shuts behind me, and I can hear the quick click of the lock. A swallow back the burning heat I feel swelling behind my hazel eyes. 

*

The night is still well over ahead when I wake up from my slumber. The room is completely dark aside from the moonlight streaming in from the bedroom window. Even covered in layers of blankets, thick cotton sweatpants and one of Mark’s coziest sweatshirts, I feel so cold my body begins to shiver slightly. How did it get so cold in here?

I become alert to the cause of my premature awakening. As I focus my attention in, I notice a strange sound emitting from down the hall. Slowly, I rise from the bed, looking around the vacant room. Nothing seems out of the ordinary - Mark is absent from his side of the bed, as has become the norm. Spencer and Chica have both curled up near me on the King sized bed, taking up the extra space where my partner once resided. The door to the bedroom is closed, being the only thing appearing different from when I went to sleep. Strange. I don’t remember closing it before bed, since I usually am fine to leave the door open in hopes that maybe it will serve as a sign to beckon my boyfriend back to bed with me. 

I move out from under the covers, trying to be careful not to alert the dogs. Chica and Spencer have now come to associate me waking up with potty time, and I really rather try to investigate the strange noise rather than sit outside in the cold, dark night. 

Step by step, I put in all my effort to remain silent as I approach the door. It’s hard to make out what exactly the noise is, but it almost sounds like a voice. No, it’s too deep to be a voice, but the cadence and rhythm of it almost match the sound patterns of someone speaking in a whisper. As I make it to the door, I press my ear against the crack in the wood, hoping it would allow me to focus more on the source of the noise. 

Focusing, I start to pick out more details in the sound. It’s not just one single noise, but rather two voices speaking together. No, it’s one voice with a low echo underneath, making it sound distorted and otherworldly. The voice almost sounds like Mark.

I feel a shiver run up my spine. 

Holding my breath, I continue to listen, trying to make out words from the two intertwined sounds. It sounds like the voices are speaking, but it is neither a language I understand nor one I have ever heard before. 

One thing comes to mind as I hear the speech. I remember being a middle schooler back home in Maine, sitting in my friend’s basement as we searched the web. 

“Did you know about Paul McCartney being dead?”

After being unceremoniously reminded by my friend who Paul McCartney was, my friend took me through a deep dive of video documentaries on Youtube. It was late at night on a Saturday - I was spending the night that night - so we were doing the kind of dumbass childish deep dives to scare us into staying up all night. One of the videos we pulled up on this deep dive was an example of “proof” that Paul McCartney was dead. It was a video of a turntable playing “Revolution 9” in reverse. The “proof” in question was the eerie reverse-speech of the lyrics:

_ Turn me on, dead man. Turn me on, dead man. _

At least, that’s what was claimed to be the message. What stuck with me more was the inhuman way that the reverse speech of the song sounded. In hindsight, it really wasn’t that scary, but I know I became mesmerized for some time about the discomforting tone of recordings being played in reverse. For years to come, when I was in the mood to really mess with my young anxious psyche, I would scavenge the Internet for more clips of reverse speech. When I got capable enough with recording, I would even record my own voice saying nonsense lines or reading pages from my class books and then play it in reverse, wondering if I would find some strange, Satanic message when played back. 

Hearing the nonsensical whispering voices, it almost sounds to me like speech in reverse. 

With my ear to the door, I stand paralyzed listening to the voices echoing through the halls. Hours seem to pass before the voices slowly fade away. I stay frozen in my spot, however, until I hear the front door open and close. 

I wait a few minutes before carefully, cautiously opening the door. The house is pitch black apart from a red glow coming from within Mark’s recording room. He must have left it open.

The sound of my distressed heartbeat pounds in my ear as I silently approach the room. Maybe I was just hearing the background sounds of whatever creepy game Mark was playing. He probably just forgot to turn the game off or something, which led to the lingering red light. Maybe I was still dreaming. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation for all of this.

When I come in view of the recording room, it becomes apparent that the light was not coming from the computer.

It’s coming from the paperweight. 

Downstairs, I hear the doorknob turn, and hastily turn back around towards the bedroom. I barely get inside and shut the door before I hear the door downstairs open. There is a pause before I hear what must be Mark’s footsteps coming up the stairs. As quickly and quietly as I can muster, I bury myself back under the blankets, terrified of what getting caught could entail. 

I hold my breath again, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking as I expect Mark to come barging in the door. Instead, I hear footsteps led into the recording room and the door slamming shut. 

I don’t go back to sleep. 


	3. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time in two weeks, I wake up early to another person in the bedroom. 

For the first time in two weeks, I wake up early to another person in the bedroom. 

Mark is standing, stoic as a statue, at the foot of the bed, staring right at me. 

To say the least, this was not what I was expecting to greet me this morning. Out of surprise, I let out a little yelp at the image of just a grown ass man staring at me in bed before realization hits that this is, in fact, the other occupant of the house. My cheeks flush in embarrassment as I sit up.

“Well, good morning to you, too, creepy,” I say, trying to poke fun and make light of the situation that is incredibly off-putting.

Mark doesn’t laugh. Of course he doesn’t, why would he? I haven’t seen a smile let alone hear a laugh from that mouth in ages. 

“Ethan, we need to talk.”

_ You’re telling me. I’ve been trying to talk to your fucking ass for weeks. _

“Um, okay. Can I at least grab breakfast first?”

“I would rather we talk immediately.”

My throat feels heavy as the words start to weigh in my head more. “We need to talk” is historically never a good phrase in any situation, ever. The last time I heard “we need to talk” from a partner was within hours of my last boyfriend telling me he had been seeing someone else and didn’t want to be with me anymore. 

Is that what this was all about? Was Mark so distant because he wants to break up? As painful as the thought is, it also seems hard for this to fit in with everything else that has happened. All through that last week of Unus Annus, Mark was so sweet to me, both on and off the camera. And that last night under the stairs after the stream. It doesn’t make sense. Was it all a lie? Why would Mark lie about that? Why would Mark lie about that and then try to ghost me in our own house? Hell, Mark was the one that begged me to move in with him just a few months ago. How could he just pull this “we need to talk” card out of the blue? 

I try to stop the thought spiral before it can continue. Just because he says “we need to talk” does not mean it’s  _ that _ kind of “we need to talk”, right? There are so many things that we can talk about. Maybe this will be what I have been waiting for all along. Maybe Mark will come clean about what’s bothering him so we can work together to move past it. Maybe Mark will get all that he needs off of his chest and then we can just be a couple again. 

“Okay,” I say, cautiously. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Things are a little tense here, aren’t they?”

I nod, unsure if I should allow myself to feel any sort of hope in this moment. “Y-yeah, they have been. I’ve been trying to talk with you about it for a while.”

“I think there is something that we should consider, then. In order to fix some of these. . . problems going on.”

_ Yes, there is. You need to come over here and just kiss me or fuck me or hug me. You need to tell me you love me and that you’re sorry and that you’ll never ignore me like this again. You need to hold me and never let go of me ever again until the heat death of the universe and then maybe a little bit longer still. _

“Wh-what did you have in mind?”

“I think we need to take a break.”

Every ounce of wind inside my body exits with a swift emotional kick to my gut. 

He wants a “break”. A break. A “break” is never a “break”. A break only ever means one thing. Mark wants to break-up with me. Everything that last week of Unus Annus was a lie. Mark has finally come to terms with the fact that he hates me. Mark has finally realized that he regrets everything - doing the channel with me for a year, starting a relationship with me, asking me to move in with him, asking me to move out to LA to work for him. Mark wants a break. Mark doesn’t want me. 

Mark doesn’t want me. 

Any effort I had put up before to stop the thought spiral has now been given up. I feel tears welling up in my eyes, and I look down away from the older man. My chest feels hollow inside as I hear him continue to speak.

“I think maybe you should get out of here for a bit. I don’t think I can handle this place with you around any longer. Kathryn still has that room open since you moved out, right? You should call her to see if you can stay there for some time. I think that would be best for both of us.”

Even when Mark and I have been furious with each other, I have never noticed him to sound so cold and detached. This side of Mark is so bizarre, but it’s hard to stay focused on how confused I am by his utter lack of emotion while speaking when I feel like my soul is being ripped out from within my chest. I struggle to gain control of my mouth enough to speak without sobbing as the tears start to freely fall down my cheeks. 

“A-are you sure? Do you really - really want that?”

“I think it will be good for both of us.”

The words don’t make sense. Good for both of us? What about this could possibly be good for me? 

I can only muster one more word out.

“Why?”

I slowly look up at him. He remains expressionless. 

“Because I’m tired of you, Ethan,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I need my space and you refuse to give it to me. I want you out of my house so I can finally be alone and have that space. Got it?”

I have nothing to say in response. This is his house, after all. He really can just kick me out, huh?

“I’ll give you time to pack your things, but I want you out by noon.”

He turns to make his way towards the door, but stops at the threshold to add one last thing: “And take the dogs, too. Both of them.” 

*

I stay frozen for at least a half hour on the bed after Mark left the room. My brain is reeling as I try to focus on something, anything to grasp on to. I feel the room whirling around me, like I am sitting on the apogee of a gigantic spinning top that is going to collapse on its side at any moment. Desperate fingers knot themselves in the linen sheets underneath me, hoping that if I hold on tight enough I won’t be flung off the ride. 

In the distance, I hear the front door open and shut. That is the last straw on my back.

A wretched sob breaks through my chest, opening the floodgates of emotion I had been keeping back for so long. I collapse forward onto the bed, burying my face into the covers as rivers of tears flow down my face. 

The gigantic top tips over. 

A break. This could only mean one thing. The way that Mark had spoken, the dead commitment in his voice and dark eyes, it was clear that he wanted nothing to do with me. 

I try so hard to quiet my sobs, to try to push the distress back down in case the front door opens again and Mark returns. There are things I need to do. I need to put myself together and call Kathryn. I need to get up out of bed and start packing. This was no longer my home. 

I’m not just losing a boyfriend. Break-ups are hard and devastating, but I know I’m strong enough to deal with that pain of being rejected from a lover. After all, it doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was in a similar position to this. But this - this is different. I’m losing my best friend. For the past four years, Mark has been the support beam that kept me standing. I’m losing my inspiration. Beyond the fact that Mark is literally responsible for me getting this opportunity to turn what was once just wishful thinking into a sustainable career, Mark has been the voice in my head pushing me to do better, to be more, to be better. I wouldn’t even be the person I am today without him coming into my life and touching it as he has. 

Feeling sick to my stomach, I finally have enough drive to rush over to the bathroom, expecting the minimal contents of my stomach to force themselves out. I kneel in front of the toilet, waiting for something to give, but the feeling eventually passes, being replaced by a lingering tightness. 

Well, at least it got me out of bed. 

I don’t know when Mark will return, but I had been given the deadline to be out by noon. My watch is sitting on the bathroom counter, its typical resting place at the end of the night. I guess that’s the last time it will be resting there. Reaching over, I press the screen to reveal the time. 

9:52 AM.

That gives me some time, at least. Enough for maybe even a quick shower to wash away the tears and snot from my face to hopefully reveal the person underneath the sadness. 

God, I’m melodramatic. 

Then again, this is a weirdly melodramatic situation. It’s not every day that your boyfriend who literally gave you your career tosses you into the wind. 

For the first time in months, I’m careful to pick out one of my own towels before closing the bathroom door and hopping into the shower. I close my eyes and face the stream of water, hoping if I get my face wet enough it will reduce the puffy redness around my eyes. When I’m feeling like this, I want nothing more than to be able to just stand underneath the warm spray for hours, but I know I have to be timely right now. The clock is ticking, after all. Ironically enough. 

With heavy reluctance, I exit the shower after only a few minutes in order to start tackling my mental to-do list. A toss on the first clothes I find - well, the first clothes of mine I find. It feels almost strange to completely ignore Mark’s side of the dresser, but I can’t imagine things would go very well for me if I walked out of the house donning one of his favorite Cloak shirts. 

Cloak. Jesus, I have so much Markiplier-brand clothing. What am I going to do with all my Cloak shirts?

I try to shake the thought out of my mind. Not something to get hung up on now. After all, my watch now reveals the time to be 10:02 AM. No sense in wasting precious moments. 

The first step is calling Kathryn. I get nervous when the phone rings a few times, but she does ultimately pick up. I try to keep the conversation short, but it feels like pulling teeth to be honest with her. I say the bare minimum (“Something happened with Mark. Can I stay with you for a little bit while I figure things out?”) without going into detail, knowing that if I did I may come apart all over again. I’m sure there will be time for that later when I’m back on her couch crying on my old roommate’s shoulder. If I’m not crying on Mark’s shoulder, I’m usually crying on Kathryn’s. 

The next step is shoving as many things as possible into my suitcase and meager backpack. There were a lot of bigger things that I would have to come back for, but I tried to get as many clothes and toiletries in the bags as I could. The basic recording equipment was a little bit harder to maneuver, but most of the necessities fit well enough in my trunk. Yeah, it was going to take a couple of trips to get everything considering I had my entire workspace set up in the smaller of the three bedrooms. I silently pray that somehow I can get back in here without having to cause a huge fuss. 

The final step, I know, will be wrangling the dogs and all their basic necessities. It feels weird to be taking Chica as well, but Mark had made it a point telling me to take both of the dogs. As much as I want to fight him on just thrusting his dog upon me for the foreseeable future, I also know that I have been the only one taking care of the girl these past few weeks. Whatever Mark is changing into has not been concerned about the dog’s wellbeing. Even if Mark hadn’t told me to take her, I would still fear for her being alone with Mark. 

Before I get the dogs ready to go, however, I should do one more sweep around the house to make sure I’m not missing any of the essentials. I have about twenty minutes until noon at this point, so I also just want to have my moment to say goodbye. This house has become synonymous with Mark and the whole experience of Unus Annus. Moving out now feels like all of this is really over. 

I amble through our room and my recording space, careful to check every corner. I am grateful when I peek into the bathroom because I realized I almost forgot my toothbrush of all things. The kitchen is almost entirely Mark’s - some of my supplies I had still left in a box at Kathryn’s - so I spend the least amount of time in there. I stop as I come to the room on the first floor which has over time become the “storage unit” of Unus Annus. 

I haven’t gone in this room since the channel ended. Really, I haven’t needed to, and with Mark acting so strange, I had been distracted by so many other things going on around me. I wonder if he’s gone in here at all, either. 

Biting my lip slightly, I open the closed door and am met by the sight of various props strewn along the ground. 

The cursed SCP Amy stands decaying in the corner with its mask facing towards the window, almost as if she is watching the wind blowing through the trees outside. At her feet is the box containing the lock picking set as well as the box containing the Star Wars “force” toy. Almost every inch of the room is covered in something - plastic cups, cardboard cutouts, posters of woodland wildlife, green screen sheets, black and brown-haired extensions, Amazon boxes. I know the last time we had spent a significant amount of time in here was when we filmed that video where we were literally just fucking around with props for an hour. That’s probably where most of this mess started and with the chaos of the final weeks of filming, I guess we never came back in here to straighten things up. 

One item in the center of the room, however, is unfamiliar. 

I take a step towards it, cocking my head slightly as I rake my brain to try to remember what video this was from. 

Sitting on top of the empty power washer box alongside a couple rows of black electrical tape was a crisp looking envelope in a light baby blue. There is writing on the outside, but it’s hard to see from so far away, especially with my shit vision. Once I’m close enough, I pick up the envelope. On one side, it is sealed carefully with tape that shows no sign of being tampered. On the other side, my name is written in Mark’s handwriting. 

*

_ Because I’m tired of you, Ethan.  _

I remember so well the first time I met Mark. I felt as if I was dreaming, being able to walk up to my idol as if it was nothing. Being able just to have a second of his day, it felt so surreal. For just that moment, as silly as it was, I was the center of his attention. I got to do that damn backflip for him. I remember the first time I hugged him. His smile was so warm, and his embrace was so soft. It was like coming home. I remember laying on my hotel bed at the end of the day when everything was done and just staring at my ceiling fan twirling around in its endless circle, my mind full of ecstatic disbelief. 

_ I need my space and you refuse to give it to me. _

I remember how critical it was to get Bob’s attention. I needed to meet Mark again at any and all costs. I waved and waved and waved until it felt like my arm was going to fall off and going flying across the room to smack Mark in the face instead.  _ Bob, I  _ have _ to do a backflip for Mark.  _ Just as they had the first time I met him, the stars aligned in the perfect way and he saw me. I felt like I was running on clouds as I sprinted up towards Mark and everyone else on the panel. I remember the smile that spread across my face as Mark teased me for going to hug Jack - Sean first. I got to have my cringe-worthy moment in the spotlight doing my second backflip before getting that second hug from Mark. I was home all over again. 

_ I want you out of my house so I can finally be alone. _

I remember how my hand was shaking as I held the phone. Any second I was sure I would blink and this would all be a dream. Mark, Markiplier,  _ the  _ Mark, was asking me to come to L.A., to come work for him as his next editor. Everything I could ever hope for seemed like it was coming true in those seconds. It was one of those moments where even as I was living it I knew it was the first day of the rest of my life. 

_ Because I’m tired of you, Ethan. _

I remember the way I completely collapsed onto the couch backstage after the first night of the tour. My body felt absolutely annihilated from the exhaustion of having to perform like that in front of so many people. I had no clue how I would ever be able to get up and do it again the next day, but then he came back with the widest, shit-eating-grin I ever saw. He rushed over and gave me the biggest hug he had ever given me. He cheered for me, saying I had done such an amazing job and that he was so happy that I had joined him on the tour. Just as soon as he had come up to me to congratulate me, he was gone, doing the same to each of the other members of the team. Even though it was just a short second, that little encounter was enough to refill my tank for the whole tour. 

_ I don’t think I can handle this place with you around any longer. _

I remember when I crashed on his couch for three days following my first real, adult breakup. I had never had a friend so willing to sit with me in all my pitiful misery as I cried and cried on to his shoulder. During a time when I would much rather sit as a lump and rot away, he kept me fed and hydrated and insisted on me playing Mario kart with him until our fingers could hardly move. He refused to let me go back to my own apartment until he had seen a genuine smile on my face. The last night I was over, we both fell asleep laying on each other on the couch, the television playing quietly in the background of whatever loading screen we had left off on. 

_ Because I’m tired of you, Ethan. _

I remember that fateful day at Buffalo Wild Wings. The way both of our eyes were lit up the whole time as we dug deeper and deeper into this idea of a daily channel that would be deleted after a year. We were like school children with how much we giggled at the absurd Latin names we were looking up. His dark eyes glittered in the brightest way when he laughed. I couldn’t imagine a single person that made me laugh the way that Mark did. 

_ I think it will be good for both of us.  _

I remember the first kiss. We had gone on a long walk to discuss what would need to happen with the channel, air out any and all concerns we had about the process. We got about a half hour into the conversation before things took an unexpected turn. Mark wanted to make sure I knew about a specific concern that had been on his mind lately. It was strange seeing my friend, a man that shrouds himself constantly in a facade of hyper-confidence, start to stumble over his words nervously. I would have never in a hundred years predicted the words that came out of his mouth then. He confessed that his seemingly amicable break-up with Amy was a lot deeper than two friends realizing they only wanted to be friends. He went on a borderline nonsensical rant about how life is so short and there is so little time left that if there is something you need to do, well, then you just have to do it. He told me how much I meant to him and how much he admired the potential I had inside me. Then he asked if he could kiss me. 

_ I’m tired of you, Ethan.  _

I remember the first time. I was so nervous as I felt his hands moving underneath my shirt. It shouldn’t have been that weird - we had both seen practically every part of each other from so many years working together in a thousand different capacities. There was not a single nook or cranny on either of our bodies that hadn’t been glimpsed at some point - especially not after filming that damned nude painting video - , but this was undoubtedly different. I wasn’t completely out of experience, but I had only been with one man before. I felt so nervous of somehow ruining something perfect. Mark could sense how nervous I was, and he pulled back before I insisted that I wanted to continue. His hands were so gentle on every part of my body that it didn’t take long for my fears to dissipate. Throughout it all, he whispered encouragement in my ear, telling me how beautiful I was, how much he loved me, how much I meant to him. I never wanted to be apart from him again.

_ Got it? _

I remember how he stared at me without a single emotion in his eyes, an empty shell behind his words. It had only been a day ago, but it feels like eons have passed since I was kicked out. I was very lucky that Kathryn had not only been around to answer my frantic calls but also kind and willing enough to let me come back into my old room. She and Amy were both around when I arrived - Amy had already been around when I had called up Kathryn, apparently -, an overstuffed suitcase and backpack in tow. There was something weirdly comforting having Amy there, almost like it was a camaraderie of Markiplier rejects. I wonder how she felt seeing me like that. Being surrounded by caring friends was nice. We drank too much wine, ordered in a pizza, and watched the same three television shows we always used to watch when I lived here and Amy came over to visit. We stayed up most of the night until the alcohol and exhaustion finally got to me and I wandered off to the room that used to be mine. 

It’s weird laying on the spare blow-up mattress and staring at the walls that were once covered in my pictures and posters. It feels almost like spending a night in your childhood home decades after moving out. Has it really only been six months since my clothes were last hanging in that closet? 

Only a couple hours has passed since I came stumbling in here. In my semi-drunken state, I definitely did not blow-up the air mattress well enough. My back aches as I sit up. Not to mention my two dog companions definitely did a number on making sure the mattress was fully deflated by the time I woke up. 

I try to go about my day as normally as I possibly could. Unfortunately, Kathryn is busy most of the day, so I do have to spend a lot of my time alone. I nurse a cup of coffee until it is well past cold, trying to come up with ideas to stay busy. 

Maybe I can just take this time to focus on recording. Sure, I don’t have everything, but I could probably do something simple. I had been able to release a few videos since the end of Unus Annus, but maybe another lighthearted video going through Tik Tok or Reddit would be something that could cheer me up a bit. 

On second thought, maybe going on Reddit isn’t the greatest idea. I’m certain there will be hundreds of posts about or including Mark considering that thousands of fans had flocked to each of our reddit’s to share UA-related content after we had shut down that Reddit. 

Well, Tik Tok it is then.

For the first time all day, I pull out my phone. I have a wave of unanswered texts that I have been neglecting since last night.

Five notifications are visible from my home screen.

Number one: Text from Mark’s mom. “I still havent heard from Mark??? please call me.”

Number two: Text from Tyler. “Hey, Amy told me about what happened. Are you okay, man?”

Number three: Text from Alex. “Mark okay? Heard nothing from him. Supposed to come by today.”

Number four: Snapchat from Matt Watson. Probably gay porn again. Or straight porn again.

Number five: Text from Matt Watson. “Sorry about Snap. Just heard stuff is up. Hope you’re doing well, buddy.”

I swipe away each of the notifications. I know I should answer people sooner than later, but nothing in this moment sounds more exhausting than having to go through the same story a million times over. Despite overall being a very extroverted person, in times like these all I want to do is crawl into my own personal shell. 

I take to Twitter and make a hasty post asking for people to send me Tik Toks before putting my phone back in my pocket, content to let the sea of notifications sit alone for longer. I will get to them later, I promise myself. 

I only relax for a moment after posting to Twitter before realizing that trying to film today means having to put together some kind of makeshift set up in my old bedroom. 

I groan at the thought.

A few hours are spent on me bringing my equipment up from my guest parking spot down below into the apartment, unloading my lights and microphone and what I had of my PC, and then futzing around for way too long trying to find what would be the optimal set up. The room like this was a terrible space for recording - with nothing on the walls, everything is so damn echoey and I have to borrow a spare folding table to set my computer on. I end up borrowing blankets to safety pin to the walls in an attempt to reduce the echoes in the room. The sun is almost down by the time I am somewhat satisfied with the setup I have created. I take a break to put food in my mouth and coffee in my bloodstream before returning to the “desk” as ready as can be.

It is at that moment that I realize I forgot my mouse. 

Never in my life have I wanted to kick myself in the head as much as I do right now, and that is saying something because I once thought a roaster was required for a chicken to lay an egg. 

My teeth dig into my lip as I try to figure out my next plan of action. Maybe I could just film on my laptop and use the trackpad? No, my laptop is so slow compared to my desktop and even if I don’t need the mouse now, I will need it eventually. If I’m not ready, maybe I can wait until later, but eventually I will have to go over to Mark’s house and get it.

Or maybe I could just buy a new one? They’re not that expensive, after all.

No, Ethan, stop being a coward. I can totally handle myself just driving over and picking up the mouse. It’s not that big of a deal. 

I got pepper sprayed in the face. I can handle seeing Mark. Sure the latter is less painful.

Right?

I should at least give him a heads up, though. I pull out my phone and push away the notifications once more and call Mark, holding my breath as I wait to hear his voice.

Only I don’t hear his voice because it goes right to voicemail, indicating that his phone was turned off. 

Great, guess it will be a surprise visit then. So be it. 

I try to stall as much as I can. I take the dogs for a short walk around the block before trying to call again and going straight to voicemail. I take an impromptu late night shower despite having just showered this morning before trying to call again. Still voicemail, no rings. 

He probably has his phone turned off to record. I will just have to be extra quiet coming into the house. Maybe he won’t be home again, which would be the best case scenario of them all. 

After my third and final attempt at calling, I know I can’t wait much longer. It’s getting late and if I don’t go now, I may never go. 

Climbing into the car, I look over to the passenger seat and notice the light blue envelope. I must have forgotten it in the car with all the commotion of bringing my things up into Kathryn’s apartment. It will have to wait a little while longer, though. I know if I stop to read whatever was in it I would only become a wreck again and not go through with my plan to pick up the mouse. 

I know the route to Mark’s house from here like the back of my hand. In just a light hoodie, I feel like I’m on fire inside the car as I pull out from the guest parking spot. I crack the windows down all the way, hoping that the November air could cool me down at least a little before I overheat from my own nerves. In a fruitless attempt to calm myself, I sync up my phone to the car radio to start sorting through my playlist. 

I start to listen to the first verse of the song that shuffles on, but I have to switch it out immediately when I remember how sad the song is. I wait and listen to hear the first chords of the next song.

No, too much of a love song.

Next.

Another sad song.

Next.

A sad break-up song.

Next.

A sad, spiteful break-up song.

Next.

Oh, I like this one. It has a pretty nice beat to it, simple and catchy. I don’t remember adding this to my playlist, though. Who added it?

Mark. Of course Mark. He loves this song.

Memories of him in the driver’s seat, singing it softly like a lullaby as we drive back from our long days of recording Camp Unus Annus flood into my head. 

Next. 

I spend over half of the car ride just sorting through songs before giving up entirely. Maybe music isn’t the distraction I need right now. Instead, I sit in silence and try to focus in on my breathing as I turn off the main road that leads me to Mark.

My heart drops when I see Mark’s car in the driveway. There probably would not be the easy chance to just avoid him then, after all. 

As I pull up closer, I notice another car in the driveway, too. I have to drive a little past the house to find a good spot for street parking. Who the hell would be over at this point? The car doesn’t look like anything that I recognize, so it can’t be one of the regular guests that would be present. I feel my chest tighten and my body grow even warmer again. 

I approach the front door hesitantly, but before I put my key in the lock I pause. I hear a low note from inside underneath the sound of Mark laughing. There is another voice, too, with Mark. An unfamiliar, feminine voice. Through the thin glass window beside the door, I can see two figures standing in the hallway. 

I should not be staring. I should make my presence known, but deep down I know that if I do that, whatever is happening will be interrupted. This might be one of my only chances to start to understand what has happened with Mark.

I thank God and any other deity that may exist that the dogs are at Kathryn’s right now. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be able to stay here unnoticed as I lean closer to the glass, trying to look in to see what was happening.

One of the figures, as expected, is Mark. He towers over the other person, likely a woman with the way their hair hangs low in curls on their shoulders. Mark is holding a glass in his hand with dark liquid inside it and he tips it back slightly to take a long sip, still looking down at the woman. Was he drinking  _ wine _ ? It couldn’t be - Mark doesn’t drink. Sure, one sip probably wouldn’t cause him to go full heart attack like he had in college, but he’s a cautious enough guy to know that he shouldn’t touch the stuff at all for his own safety. Outside of the disgusting homemade wine we created months prior, I have never seen Mark even look for more than a second at anything alcoholic. 

I press closer to the window ever so slightly, straining to try to make out what words were being said, but all I can hear is a low murmur. Mark leans down to whisper in the woman’s ear, and I see her tense up, taking a step back before he grabs her wrist and pulls her closer. My chest tightens even more as I see him offer the glass of wine to his companion. She looks up at him for a long second before taking the glass with her hand that was not being stuck in Mark’s iron grip. She tips it back and takes it in, maintaining eye contact. 

Engrossed in whatever is happening in front of me, I press closer to the point that my nose is up against the glass. Who was this woman? As I continue to listen, the voices inside grow slightly louder and I can almost start to make out full sentences.

“ - give you everything - “

“ - have eight years - “

“ - promise you -”

Before I can hear anything else, I jump at the sudden sound of my phone ringing. 

Mark’s head snaps towards the door instantaneously, inhumanely. His eyes glow a bright, threatening red.

I immediately pull back away from the door and out of sight of the window before booking it. A fear I have never felt before grows inside of me as I rush over to my car a block away. 

The once familiar houses of Mark’s neighborhood loom over like twisted black creatures cackling at me as I force my feet to move as quickly as they possibly can. I don’t look back for fear that if my attention wavers for even a second something will capture me and stop me in my mission. 

Whatever that was - that thing inside there, it wasn’t Mark. It couldn’t be Mark. Those red eyes were too clear and too unmistakably not human. My hands can’t move fast enough as I fumble with my keys and jam them at the ignition until they make purchase with the slot. As the engine purrs to life and I press my anxious foot onto the gas, I swear that I see red eyes in the rearview mirror. I don’t look in my mirrors again until I am back in Kathryn’s parking lot. 

I let the deafening silence hang in the air for at least ten minutes before I feel like I can relax at all. Every time I close my eyes, I see glowing red, but as I look around my car there is no one in sight. I melt back slightly into the seat, glancing over to the passenger side of the car, and I see the baby blue letter. I reach over and grab it.


	4. Stick around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In exchange for everything that I have been given, I agreed to give up something on my end, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Thank you for your patience, finals week has got me distracted but now I'm back on my game plan for getting chapters written for this. Thank you for all the support so far, I'm really excited now that we're getting more in the thick of it for the story.
> 
> CW: Descriptions of alcohol use, vomiting, sex

_ Dear Ethan,  _

_ I don’t know what state you will find me in before finding this letter. Once the time comes, I don’t know if you will find me dead or if I will just go missing. I can only hope that you can forgive me in time for leaving you like this.  _

_ I’m afraid that if I tell you the truth, even after all this has happened, that there’s no way you will believe me. Still, you deserve this attempt at an explanation at the very least. I could never leave you without any understanding. I’m sorry that this is coming to you in the form of a letter as opposed to me telling you in person, but I wanted to make sure that our last days together wouldn’t be riddled by fear and anxiety and grief. That last memory I want to have of you is being able to see you smile at my dumb ass one more time.  _

_ We’ve talked before about how hard things got for me when I was in college. I don’t need to catch you up to speed again on what happened right before I got on Youtube. Life was hard and it felt like it was only going to keep getting harder. I fell into a terrible hole of depression and meaninglessness. I was miserable where I was and I just wanted something to be better. I made some bad choices and got involved with some things I’m not proud of. Eight years later, I’m paying the cost for those bad choices. _

_ I met a man once in Cincinnati outside of the hospital shortly after my surgery. I don’t remember much of the first encounter, but he could see that I was down in the dumps and offered me a phone number of someone he knew could “help me”. I was almost sure this was some weird, Deadpool type situation, so I initially just took the business card to be nice and quickly got away from the creep. A few months later when things got really dark, I found the card again, threw all caution to the wind, and I called the number. _

_ This is going to sound absolutely bonkers, but I need you to believe me when I tell you that this is what happened. Maybe you’ll also start to understand why I couldn’t tell you before - there was no way you would have believed any of this unless something big happened to me. Hell, I still struggle to believe this really happened, either. _

_ The voice on the phone was insistent on meeting up. While I knew this was a bad idea, there was a weird pull I felt to meet with this person, something deep down in my stomach that I could not shake. So I did, like a dumb ass. He invited me to his place which, admittedly, was on a pretty scummy side of town. Again, another thing that should have deterred me, but I couldn’t drop this feeling of needing to talk with this person. I hardly even remember what the guy looked like at this point, but he was offering me things that seemed otherworldly. We made a deal that after it was sealed, I couldn’t go back on.  _

_ That deal that I made is what got me where I am today. It was a guaranteed route to success, to being able to quit college and start up my channel and get the massive following I had. It was a guarantee that even if it was slow growing at first, it immediately blew up in front of my face as something that was really real. In exchange for everything that I have been given, I agreed to give up something on my end, too. I have known for 8 years now that on November 14th, 2020 I would die.  _

_ I was young and I was dumb when I made this decision. I felt like my world was ending and I was on the verge of ending it all as it were. Eight years seemed like an eternity that was worth giving up everything else after just for the sake of success and following my dreams. I will never not agree that I was a fool and I deserve everything that is coming - whatever it is - when I die. There was some time when I started to regret the decision as the years started to fly by faster and faster. I became more and more anxious and lashed out at the people around me. I let the needs of those around me spill through the cracks. I saw huge, negative outcomes of my actions - even if they were indirect, they still happened because I had made this decision. There were so many times that I wanted to beg to go back, to give it all up for a chance at a long and uneventful life in Ohio in a job I hate. _

_ And then I met you.  _

_ At first, I think I was using you for my own self-fulfillment, and I am sincerely sorry for that. I had so much pent up guilt after what happened with the Cyndago boys that I needed to prove so much to myself that I was capable of leaving something good in this world after I was gone other than a Youtube channel. I wanted to give someone that was honestly deserving a chance. You were full of so much natural potential and spark. You never needed to sell your soul to be effortlessly charismatic and good at what you did. All you needed was one person to notice you. You became my investment, in a weird way. I brought you out and you proved me right that you were so naturally capable and deserving. How was I not supposed to fall in love with you after all of that? _

_ I first noticed my feelings when we were on tour. There were so many times we would be on stage, “dancing off” or doing some other weird improv bit, and our eyes met and I just saw so much life in yours. My initial envy of your natural talent faded away into admiration of everything you were capable of and every you would do in the future. As I have said before, I was disappointed to see that you didn’t immediately jump into amazing things after the tour ended and we “disbanded” the team. _

_ I also realized after the tour how much I just missed being around you constantly. You brought a light to my life that I had never felt ever before. No wish could have brought someone like you to me.  _

_ It was hard coming to acknowledge this realization in myself. I had already worked through a lot of guilt just around beginning my relationship with Amy knowing that I would never be able to truly give her forever. Everything else that I had had before her had been casual and meaningless in order to protect myself and everyone else. I’m not even sure how much I ever romantically felt attracted to Amy - she had just become such an important support for me that for a long time I felt like I wanted to have her by my side as my companion for my final years. “Girlfriend” was just a pretty convenient title. As my feelings for you intensified, I knew it was not fair to keep her around if I wasn’t even fully invested any more. I talked things through with her in careful terms - not exactly wanting to out myself as having under two years left before being gone from this world, but trying to find the best ways of ending our romantic arrangement in favor of maintaining our friendship.  _

_ I wrestled with myself for months about whether or not I should tell you how I felt. My clock was ticking constantly - there was only so much I could give you. Even if somehow you did return the feelings I had, what would be the good of convincing you to be with me only to have a finite deadline for our relationship? It seemed so inherently selfish, and when we met I had tried to swear off so many of my selfish tendencies in order to give you the best shot available. I tortured myself over it for a lot longer than I would like to admit. _

_ I eventually came to realize that the time I had left was precious. I can’t change the fact that I will die soon, but I can make the most with the rest of my time left and also find a way to spend my last year doing what I loved most. I knew that doing something like Unus Annus would be not only great exposure for you so people could have time to realize just how lovable and fantastic you were but that it would also fulfill my selfish desire to create with you every single day. When I first pitched the idea, I was ecstatic to see you immediately agree to the ridiculous idea of it and then you came right out the gate with enthusiasm and ideas that made me know this was the right choice. Seeing your reactions to the genesis of our cursed channel made me know that I had to tell you. _

_ You could probably also say it was a dumb fucking idea to express my love for you immediately before we planned to spend an entire year together filming. Actually, I think that you did say that to me a few minutes after our first kiss, but I will never bring myself to regret it. Getting to see that after all this time, you felt a similar way to me that I felt to you was so worth it. My only regret is that I didn’t kiss you sooner.  _

_ I was given so much after making that deal, but the greatest gift of all was not something I received directly from my wish. It wasn’t money or views or subscribers.  _

_ It was you. It was always you. It will always be you.  _

_ I love you, Ethan. I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around longer.  _

_ Mark _

*

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to remember that the first time happened the night after we filmed the nude art video. 

Like most of the channel, the idea for the nude drawings had been Amy’s. Amy is, of course, a not-so-secret comedic genius and had come up with the idea pretty early on when we officially brought her on board as our artistic producer. At the beginning, we all had a grand old laugh at the idea and wrote it down on the list of possibilities. When we made it a month in and had exhausted our first round of “bangers”, we started moving on to other wonderful ideas we had planned out before, so of course we returned to this hilarious idea of drawing each other. Of drawing each other naked. Of us being naked together in the same room while Mark’s ex-girlfriend filmed us. 

Needless to say, the fact that we had quietly begun dating in the month prior hugely complicated this whole endeavor. We were still debating on the conundrum of “do we tell Amy?” at that point in time, so both of us just grinned and nodded when she suggested we finally do that idea. I never asked Mark for sure if he was feeling just as nervous about doing the video, but something about how he did not meet my eyes at all before filming started gave me that idea. 

And so, there we were, in nothing but silk robes nervously glancing at each other as we set up everything for the video. Luckily, this was the final video we were filming on this particular day, so I at least knew going into it that I could peacefully die of embarrassment and discomfort when we were done.

In retrospect, I could have made some kind of excuse. I could have said I wasn’t comfortable with the idea anymore and my friends would have been fine with it. I could have said I was feeling sick to my stomach to stop filming for the day. I could have said I had a weird bruise from Spencer jumping on my stomach one morning and used that as an excuse even. However, I didn’t. I knew this would be a great video if I could just somehow get past the endless barrage of intrusive thoughts of “holy-shit-I-have-to-stare-at-Mark-naked” and “oh-god-Mark-is-going-to-have-to-stare-at-me-naked.” Was I going to pop a boner and embarrass myself? Was I just going to drop dead from the shear dread of my dick being on display for my partner who might be silently judging everything about me in the moment? Only time would tell. 

When the room was arranged and everyone had come back from their coffee breaks after filming the last video, it was time to go. We had only one thing to decide before the cameras would start rolling.

“So, uh, who is getting ‘painted’ first?” I asked, unable to make full eye contact with Mark for more than a second at a time. 

“I can paint first,” Mark responded quickly, already moving to stand in front of the drawing pad.

That asshole. 

The camera began rolling. Feeling the gaze of Amy’s camera on me, I laughed nervously as I stared over at the older man and discarded my robe. No going back now. Also laughing with the same anxious energy, Mark shedded his clothing as well, and it took everything in me to not let my eyes wander. The absolute last thing I needed was that taken out of context - or even in context.

Keeping it together got exponentially easier as we got into our regular rhythm of stupid bits and quibs back and forth. It also helped that my “stance” had me strategically both putting my dick slightly behind the stool as well as staring up at the ceiling. Sure, this eventually became an absolute pain to hold up for how long it was taking Mark to sketch me, but I rather have to focus on the discomfort in my arms then basically anything else in that moment. My “on camera” persona took over by that point, allowing me to make stupid jokes about being The Little Mermaid and Mark’s naked calendar. 

The uneasiness returned when it was Mark’s turn to be the artistic subject. Where I had worked some kind of coiness in my stance, he - in true, bombastic Markiplier fashion - had to perch himself with one foot on top of the stool and his package fully visible for both me and Amy. I’m sure 99% of it was just in the name of being a funny Internet man, but I couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that 1% of it was to fuck with me. Later on, when I interrogated him about this decision, he denied any fuckery, but in my mind, the jury is still out on the matter. 

Every inch of my being focused on keeping it together and not looking down at Mark, despite the burning curiosity in the back of my head. Just as before, this became a hell of a lot easier as Mark went on his weird rambling bit about Korean bath houses and old men scrubbing through his skin. Sure, a new kind of anxiety returned when Mark emerged with a paintball gun, but that was also relieving in that I could very openly show my fear of being shot without it being abnormal or leading to questions from either our lovely camerawoman, our editor, or the millions of people watching us. 

I could barely control how my stomach dropped at the thought of millions of people noticing my nerves around naked Mark. 

Regardless, we survived. I almost sprinted towards the bathroom to collect my clothes once the cameras turned off, so ready to hide behind the comfort of opaque cotton materials once more. The other two definitely noticed my speed as I heard a collection of chuckling behind me, but at this point I did not care. Mark followed suit, a step slower, going to where he left his clothing and replacing his wardrobe. Amy stuck around as we all chatted slightly, talking about next week’s videos. She seemed thankfully chill even after having to film her naked ex for a little over a half hour. I would never fully understand how someone so laid back handled someone so high strung like Mark, but even after breaking up the two always seemed so at ease with one another. One day we would eventually tell her, and of course she was more than understanding, but at that moment I was terrified of what could happen to their friendship if we shared the truth. 

The air shifted when Amy left. 

It made me think about the incident with the hole in the wall. How we had kept everything together until after Evan left. Of course, this was different, but I could not ignore the strange parallel between the two events. 

We had an easy late-night dinner of sandwiches put together from whatever random ingredients we could locate in Mark’s fridge. Sitting at his table, we ate mostly quietly - small talk about the day and the videos being had but a good chunk of the time was spent with us each being silently tired and hungry. After scarfing down my food, I stood up to make my way to the door, knowing Mark mentioned previously having to be up early in the morning.

A hand caught my wrist before I could get away from the table. 

“Where you doing?”

“I should probably get going soon, right? I’m sleepy and you have stuff tomorrow.”

Mark paused for a long moment. I gradually slid back into my seat. 

“You could just stay here. Text Kathryn to let out Spencer or something.”

I couldn’t breathe for a second. There was a look in Mark’s eyes that I had only seen in jest before, but everything about him appeared 100% serious. In the brief time since we became “official”, whatever that means, I had only stayed over once or twice after a late night of filming or editing. Those had only happened when Mark insisted that I was in “no state” to be driving. Each time, while I had happily shared a bed with the older man, we both slept fully clothed, even if sharing the bed may have resulted in some light make out sessions and maybe mild groping. Knowing it had been a while since my last time sleeping with someone, I was trying to keep things slow - which had been a conversation early on. 

“If you want,” Mark added in, noticing I had yet to respond. He almost looked like was blushing. 

Markiplier, the suave and confident Internet personality that constantly bragged about how handsome he was and how big his dick was to an audience of millions, blushing over me? I would have mocked him mercilessly for this trip up if I myself was not without a doubt fully red in the face by this point. 

“S-sure, yeah, of course, sure.” I sighed, hoping it would help dispel the flush in my cheeks. “I would love to.”

My partner smiled, leaning over to press a kiss right to my forehead. “Good, because it’s getting colder at night so it’s about time I start hiring you out as my personal space heater.”

I rolled my eyes. “You are the space heater, buddy. The last time I was here you nearly burned me to the touch.”

“You calling me hot?”

“I said no such thing. Do not slander me.”

He stood up, now towering over me seated.

“I call bullshit,” he whispered, flashing me a shit-eating grin right after. “But, I’m going to go shower. Feel free to borrow something from my closet.” He leaned forward ever so slightly. “Or don’t. I mean, after today it’s really up to you.”

The heavy blushing on my cheeks came back full force. I opened my mouth as if to speak but there were literally no words I could muster in that moment. Mark laughed, assumingly at my reaction, pressing another kiss into my hair and then taking both of our plates and exiting the room. Head still reeling, I sent out a quick message to my roommate before making my way up the stairs towards Mark’s bedroom. With every step, I could feel my heartbeat thumping louder in my chest. As I heard the shower head start a few doors over, I stared at a drawer full of Mark’s sweatpants. 

He had totally just told me I could just be naked when he comes back. Was he expecting that? Did I want to do that? Was he going to show up and just drop his towel in front of me? Was there any point in covering up especially after he had literally seen it all?

My mind shamelessly wandered on the thought of Mark in the other room, naked under the stream of warm water. While I had tried my damndest not to stare south during the shoot, I could not help but notice that - at least from the looks of it soft - Mark was definitely not entirely joking whenever he talked about himself as well-endowed. Had I been anyone else, it would be disappointing that I couldn’t point out that the cocky bastard was lying whenever he joked. With more context in that moment of what was in the other room, I couldn’t help but feel my blood rushing thinking about him. If he was seriously trying to make a move on me that night, a huge part of me was already down for it. My only hang up was the incredible anxiety bubbling in my stomach.

I was still in my day clothes when I heard the water shutting off. In a panicked state, I grabbed the first pair of gray sweatpants on the top of the pile and tossed my jeans off and to the side. I discarded my t-shirt, but Mark arrived in the room before I could grab something to cover my torso. 

I felt both disappointed and relieved to see Mark entering also in sweatpants and a tank. He must have had spare clothes in the bathroom. I guess I had not considered that possibility. I could see his eyes light up when he saw me.

“I should have brought the paint bull gun in here with me. You’re so open and vulnerable, what a missed opportunity,” he sighed, taking a couple steps towards me. His hair was still very wet, droplets running down the sides of his face. When he was close enough, I reached out to wipe one of the racing drops away.

“I could guarantee that you would be sleeping alone if you even tried that shit on me.”

He shrugged. “I guess that’s fair. Maybe another time then.” One of his arms snaked around my waist, but he did not try to pull me closer just yet. Still, my heart felt like it was going to beat through my chest entirely from the touch of his strong hand on the bare small of my back. He feels extra warm post-shower. “I’m a little disappointed. I think part of me was hoping I’d walk in and you’d still be in that cute little robe.”

“You’re such a creep,” I teased, though my sarcastic tone faltered. On a brief whim of bravery, I leaned closer to press my lips onto him. 

He smiled, whispering against my lips. “As if you don’t love it.” Finally, his arm tightened around me, pressing our chests together with only the thin barrier of cloth between us. “Do you want to lay down with me?”

I nodded eagerly, and his grip on me broke to allow me to flop over onto the bed. The sheets felt as soft as a cloud and as I dug my face right into the pillow I noticed how everything smells like him. The overheard lights flicked off while Mark turned on just the bedside lamp to create a dim ambience in the room. 

A voice sighed above me before two demanding hands pushed me out of the way to make room for Mark. I groaned in protest, but I didn’t put up any fight as I was rolled over to the other side of the bed. “You little brat,” my partner grumbled, climbing into the bed beside me and wrapping his arms around me to pull me closer again.

On another whim of bravery, I uttered out the words that I knew would push a special but deep inside him.“Whatcha going to do about it?” 

Even though I knew exactly what I was provoking, the air still emptied from my lungs as the man pounced on top of me, hands pinning my wrists down onto the bed below me. His face was hardly an inch above mine and I could feel his hot breath. Mark paused for a second, something dropping in his face briefly before backing up. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to push too far. I know you said you wanted to take things slow.” He released my hands, a slight hint of guilt sinking into his face. “Is this - is this okay? Do you want to keep going?”

I thought back to our conversation after the hole in the wall. 

“I have to be honest,” I said softly. “I really, really want to. Like, really super duper want to. I’m just a little - a little scared.”

Mark pulled back more, but I responded by wrapping my arms around him, not wanting him to move too far away.

“It’s nothing you’re doing,” I amended. “It’s just, it’s been a while and I’m scared of, um - I’m scared of disappointing you, I guess.”

His eyes narrowed as he peered down at me, as if he was squinting to read something in the distance. “Ethan,” he whispered, one hand coming to touch my face. “You are, literally, the most amazing person I know in every way. I don’t want you to be afraid of disappointing me.” He kissed me, deep yet maintaining a sense of gentleness. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do right here with me in this bed that would disappoint me.”

As much as my instincts of deflection wanted to make a crude joke out of those words, I was overwhelmed by the sense of love coming from Mark’s words. 

“I want to show you every way possible how much you mean to me,” he whispered, his fingers moving up to run gingerly through my hair. “Can I do that?”

Breathing in deeply, I nod. “Y-yes.”

He leaned in to capture me in a kiss that had to be rated, in the words of the Princess Bride, as “one of the most passionate, the most pure” before proceeding to show me how much I meant to him.

In the morning, after one of the best nights of my life, I awoke in an empty bed. My heart dropped at first before I noticed something that had been left behind from my lover. A note was waiting for me on the pillow next to mine, written in Mark’s awful chicken scratch. 

_ Dear Ethan, _

_ Had to leave early to get to the meeting. I hope you can forgive me. I’ll be back soon to make us a late breakfast, but I get it if you need to get going. Spare key is in the downstairs closet if you need it. _

_ I love you, Ethan. I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around longer. _

_ Mark _

*

I don’t know if it’s the sloppy writing, my dyslexia, or my hands shaking but it feels like the letters on the pages can’t stop moving. I have to re-read the words a dozen times before I can make any sense of them, and even then what the actual words are saying just doesn’t seem to add up at all. 

What kind of cruel joke was this? On top of everything else that was happening, to leave me some nonsense letter, not even give it to me but just leave it waiting on top of a pile. To fuck with my head even more than he already has completed fucked with it. Mark can be an asshole sometimes, he can be one of the hardest people to work with sometimes, but to pull something like this to completely torment my head along with how he is acting?

Unless it’s not a cruel joke, which feels even harder to grasp. I think back to the flash of red eyes, the man drinking out of a wine glass, the woman in front of him. None of  _ that _ was like Mark, either. Mark had written this letter talking about him disappearing, but clearly he had not. Was it possible that somehow he was being possessed by something? That the Mark I know has died and been replaced by some weird monster with a glowing rock that speaks in tongues?

I desperately try to push through to read the letter once more, but my hands are shaking and my head is spinning. I am barely quick enough to open the car door to keep from vomiting inside my own vehicle. Instead, I spill the minimal contents of my stomach out onto the cement ground of the parking garage below. 

Glancing around briefly, I check to see that no one saw me do that. I feel bad for just leaving my mess there, but contemplating how to clean that up is probably last on my list of existential dread at this time. I start the car back up, not sure where I plan to go but knowing the buzzing in my hands tells me I need to keep moving. 

Could Mark really be dead?

I think back to the last night of Unus Annus. I think back to how affectionate he was and loving and how he didn’t want to go to sleep. I think about how the next day it was like an entirely different person. Day and night, he went from being the closest thing I ever felt I had to a soulmate to an emotionally neglectful recluse. It wasn’t even just to me, either - everything dates back to that day. He stopped taking care of the dogs, he stopped texting his friends, he stopped calling his mom. For all of his faults with prioritizing his own work over relationships at times, Mark would never in a million years completely drop all of the people he cared about at once. 

Maybe he couldn’t, but then what does that mean about whoever was in that house? What kind of fucked up bodysnatcher have I been living with for almost three weeks now? I swallow back another round of bile as I pull out of the parking lot, fighting the urge to dry heave onto the nearest sidewalk.

Mark had talked in the letter about someone back in Ohio that “helped” him, keeping it vague and mysterious on what exactly the person - or thing - had done to help him, only that he had an 8 year time limit to enjoy said “deal”. Did this person - or thing - somehow take over Mark’s body? Was that part of the agreement? 

And what was this bullshit, cinematic excuse of not wanting to tell me? If he was dying, how could he go without telling me, his partner? What if I could have helped him, reversed whatever witch-curse or whatever the fuck was going on? How could he use me for his last year of self-fulfilment without peeling back the curtain at all? Didn’t I deserve a better closure than a letter and a demonic ex-boyfriend?

Demonic. 

A piece clicks into place in my mind. 

I had watched just enough supernatural-type shows and watched just enough horror movies for this. The “deal”, this strange person, the emotionless void left behind. This time I cannot avoid the urge again, and after I have successfully gone ten minutes just driving in circles around town, I have to pull into a grocery store parking lot to vomit again onto the pavement. A poor mother and child definitely see me, but I avoid their gaze. Shame would fill my stomach if my head wasn’t currently filled with the amazing clusterfuck it currently is.

Did Markiplier sell his soul for his Youtube career?

The man that I looked up to, as an inspiration, as a friend, and then eventually a lover. One of the people that had originally gotten me inspired to do what I am doing now. Was this all just a demon soul-claiming deal?

I find a spot to park away from where I made a mess. I fumble for the letter, re-reading for the millionth time. 

_ That deal that I made is what got me where I am today. It was a guaranteed route to success, to being able to quit college and start up my channel and get the massive following I had. It was a guarantee that even if it was slow growing at first, it immediately blew up in front of my face as something that was real. In exchange for everything that I have been given, I agreed to give up something on my end, too. I have known for 8 years now that on November 14th, 2020 I would die _

A new urge takes me over. Instead of opening the door to hurl once more, I turn off the care, grab my wallet and keys (and mask - almost forgetting), and embark on a journey towards the store. I know I must look like a crazy mess, smelling of vomit and covered in sweat and tears. Have I showered today? I can’t remember. Trying my best to avoid the nice grocery staff smiling and trying to offer help, I make a B-line towards the booze. I grab two bottles of the first red wine to stand out at me, hustle over towards the self-checkout machines, and buckle in for the night I’m about to have. 

*

I guess it’s nice having had a world shattering breakup because Kathryn absolutely does not question me when I show up looking like piss with two bottles of wine in my hands.

“Are you looking to share those?” she asks, trying to make teasing conversation.

As much as I wish I could just lay all my feelings out with another person, there is no way I could even start to explain this all to my old roommate. Current roommate? Unknown. “No, ma’am. Papa’s double fisting tonight.”

“Respectable. Let me know if you want human connection or a puke bag.”

I give her a half-assed salute, only able to devote so much energy to social interactions. I grab a wine bottle opened from the kitchener, already well acquainted to where it is, before heading over to my room. 

As I start nursing my first bottle, I go through a steady cycle of emotions. 

First, I look over the letter once again, ruminating on each and every word. I sift through the sentences as if there is a secret code I can unravel or a hidden Easter egg that I keep missing. Maybe the 54th time I read the letter, the truth will finally expel itself or I will find the reset button that brings me back to two months ago. 

Second, I make a commitment to myself to take a “break” from thinking about the letter. I go on Reddit, trying to find funny memes or videos. This does not last long as I see pretty quickly an image of me and Mark from one of our videos. I jump then to Hulu, putting on a random comedy that I have already seen every episode of. I can maybe make it through half an episode before the thoughts start invading my brain again.

Third, I start to pace around, feeling a panic set in. I drink a little more as if I can find the perfect buzz that will satiate my fears. I take Chica and Spencer outside as if fresh air can cool me down. Fresh November air - or is it December now? I’m losing days. These past five hours have felt like ten years. Was I really just over peeping in Mark’s window a few hours ago? God, what time is it? As I walk the dogs back into the building, I can feel my coordination slipping. I haven’t had that much to drink yet, have I? No, but I can confidently say I have absolutely nothing in my stomach. Maybe I should eat something. On my trip back to my bedroom, I grab a single piece of bread. I eat a corner of it before forgetting about it.

Fourth, I begin to cry. I try opening my phone again and accidentally press on my gallery. I forget that the last pictures I took were selfies of me and Mark in the suits. I see Mark’s face pressed up against mine as we’re smiling, him kissing my cheek in one. If the letter is true, then that means that no matter what is in that body right now, my Mark is dead. The wave of grief grips at my throat, and I try to struggle to keep back sobs. I know Kathryn is aware that I’m a mess, but I don’t want her to know the extent just yet. 

I cycle through the pattern a few times. Confusion and desperation then distractions then anxiety then sadness. 

The first bottle empties much quicker than I would like to admit. I notice the sadness taking more of a hold with the more wine I consume. I look back at the corner of bread I ate. I can’t bring myself to want to eat any more of it, although I know I will be paying for it dearly come morning. 

I stare at the deserted piece of bread, wondering if I watch it long enough if I will be able to see it become stale in front of my eyes. I feel absolutely pathetic at this moment, drunk and alone in my room covered in tears and reeking of cheap wine. At least my breath probably doesn’t smell like vomit anymore, on the bright side. I want to slap myself in the head to do something other than just wither away in my cycling feelings, but when I try to think of something I could do my mind draws a blank.

If the worst is true, that means Mark is dead and some demon is inside his body now. That’s probably why that random girl was there, right? This demon is going to continue his demon-y job and make deals with people while inside the body of the man I love. This isn’t a video game. I’m not some badass, Chris Redfield type that’s going to come in guns blazing killing monsters. There’s no puzzle to solve and there’s no mystical weapon that can take down the bad guy. I’m a 24-year-old loser who plays video games for a living who knows nothing about anything demonic or paranormal. I’m just lucky that for some reason that thing didn’t take Mark’s bed knife and gut me in my sleep or torture me into selling my own soul. All I can do is keep my distance and hope to god someone better than me can do something about this. It’s not like there’s some special police task force that hunts down ghosts and monsters. The Winchester brothers are not going to come out and brood at my boyfriend’s animated corpse anytime soon. No amount of Phasmophobia could prepare me for this kind of situation. 

I take a swig and let out a drunken giggle. My giggle tastes like rotten grapes. 

For all the time I spent playing stupid horror games, I am useless when it comes to actual horrors. Not like Phasmophobia is realistic anyway. Even the cooky ghost lady we talked to said it was bad. What was her name again? Linda. 

A thought occurs to me. 

It’s a fucking stupid thought, sure, but it’s a thought. 

I go to my computer and try to google the first thing that makes sense in my inebriated state, but unfortunately “linda ghost lady la” only comes up with random articles about  _ La Llorona _ . I’m blanking on a last name, and I try a couple different searches but nothing comes up. Maybe I still have her number saved on my phone? I know we had to call her a few times before filming. Maybe I had even texted her? I spend twenty minutes, deep diving through my phone. Being on a mission, it’s easier than before to ignore the things on my phone that hurt. I almost feel proud that I’m able to scroll past Mark’s name in my contacts without bursting into another round of tears. 

It’s an unmarked number deep in my inbox of text messages, but I find a brief conversation. Jackpot. 

Drunk and desperate, I call the number. No one picks up, but I go right to voicemail.

“Uh, hey, Linda. It’s me.” I pause, sober enough to know I sound like an idiot. “Ethan, that is. From Youtube? You did a video with me and my - my friend, Mark. I got a kinda, ghosty related question? It’s - it’s Mark. I can send you pictures of a letter he wrote me, but I think that maybe he’s possessed by a demon? Um, I’m sorry. You don’t have to call me back.”

I hang up, instantly regretting that I didn’t just delete the message. Feeling bad for my last phone call, I decide to leave another message. “Hi Linda. It’s me, Ethan from Youtube. I’m sorry for the last message. I know this is super duper weird. Please dis-disregard.” 

I hang up. 

I think about it. 

I call again.

“Sorry Linda, it’s Ethan from Youtube again. Please d-don’t disregard my first message. I’m - I’m really scared. I think someone can get hurt and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if there’s anything you know or anyone you know in your like, ghosty community. I’m sorry if that’s offensive. I don’t know what the terminogy - terminagogy - terminology is. I’m sorry. I’m a little - under the weather. Please call me back.”

I hang up - for the official last time. I snap photos of each page of the letter, hoping that my hands aren’t too shaky that the words don’t show up. I text them each to her. 

Glancing at the time on my phone, I feel awful when I realize it’s almost 3 in the morning. The devil’s hour. This poor woman is probably trying to get sleep, and I’m the asshole that keeps calling her and leaving messages. My guilt over my behavior wells up in my chest. I’m out of tears at this point, but I start to sob regardless. 

This, all of this, must be my fault. I should have been able to see that something was up with Mark long ago. I should have found a way to save him when I had the chance. I should have been better and saved my boyfriend. Now, he’s gone and I’m all alone in a world without Markiplier. 

I grasp the letter tightly, running my fingers over the words. His sloppy handwriting is the last thing I have of him. I trace over the letters, as if somehow it will bring me closer to him. 

_ I love you, Ethan. I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around longer.  _

I remember the first time I read those words, that night after we first had sex. Flashes of that night come back to me, feeling his weight on top of me pressing me into the bed below. I remember how he held me and whispered in my ear to help comfort me at the initial pain of feeling him inside of me. He had stared deep into my eyes, dark brown meeting blue-green hazel with a look of so much love and care. It was impossible not to completely melt underneath him. After everything was done, we had become so tangled together in each other’s limbs. I didn’t care that he was burning hot to the touch and we were both covered in sweat and saliva and lube and more. I felt so at peace as if for so long I was looking for the perfect piece of colored glass to finish my mosaic. The memories finally bring moisture back to my eyes when I thought all the tears had run dry. 

“I’m gonna fix this, Mark,” I murmur, tracing my finger tip of the letters of his name. “I’m gonna fix this, I swear. I’m gonna get you back. I’m gonna make this right.”

I know I stay up later, but after a little more gulps of wine my memory gets hazy. I don’t know if the cutoff in what I remember is from me finally succumbing to sleep and passing out on the ground surrounded by two concerned dogs or if I somehow blackout and assume that position. One of the last memories I have is my phone buzzing and reading Mark’s name in my notifications. 


	5. I'm ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In this twisted universe where apparently demons exist and they prey on Youtubers, maybe exorcist soccer moms aren’t that wild of a concept."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a late Christmas present, y'all. :)

_ Can you come by later? I want to talk to you again. _

Those are the first words I see when I press on my phone to check the time.

My head is pounding like there are a million mini-Ethans inside, smacking at my brain with tiny baseball bats at every angle. Just the light from the sun shining into the window feels blinding, so I hide my face under the borrowed blanket. When did I blow up the air mattress? I remember being asleep on the bare floor. At some point, I must have gone through the whole process of putting together my bed.

Well, not the whole process. Judging by the aching in my back and the current state of the cheap mattress, something tells me that I hadn’t blown it up all the way last night. Again. I feel like I’ve aged thirty years since I fell asleep. Maybe I did - in this weird fucking timeline, anything is possible. 

I stare at my phone blankly for a few seconds underneath the shield of the blanket. Still sluggish, my brain takes a good minute to process the two simple sentences. It’s almost hard to tell for sure if I’m just hungover or also still a little bit drunk. Probably both.

The text was from Mark.

I blink.

The text was from  _ Mark? _

I spring up from underneath the blanket, feeling a rush of sobriety as my mind finally processes what this means. Mark sent me a text, he wanted me to come by later, and he wanted to talk to me again. I can feel my chest swelling, a mounting climax of hope filling every fiber of my being before -

Before I remember the reason I was hung over in the first place. My chest immediately deflates. 

I remember the glowing red eyes staring at me and a shiver runs up my spine. I glance over towards my makeshift desk, almost smiling when I realize I am still mouse-less. I spot the pages of the letter strewn about.

The text was  _ not _ from Mark. I don’t know what sent it, but I know that it was not from my partner. I open my phone again, and I notice I also have three missed calls as well as a voicemail. At first glance, I don’t recognize the number, but then I open up the text conversation with this person and see the photos of the letter. My deflated stomach now drops.

Not only had I called Linda in my drunken stupor, but I had also sent her pictures of a letter where my “friend Mark” professed his love to me in his dying state. In my panic of the moment, I had not processed fully what it meant to share this letter with someone who was basically a stranger to me. The poor woman probably wants a restraining order from me, the lunatic that called her drunk three times in the middle of the night. With both notifications on my phone causing unique but equally unpleasant bouts of anxiety, I struggle to decide which I should deal with first. Either one will be better to contend with than the looming shadow of melancholy in the back of my head thinking about what has happened to the real Mark. 

With my head still pounding, however, I decide that is the first mountain I should climb today. Standing up slowly, I try my best to gather my wits about myself. I collect the empty wine bottles and the stale, 3/4s of bread left on my desk to take with me to the kitchen. The apartment sounds empty, with Kathryn either in her own room or possibly out. I don’t really pay enough attention to check. After tossing my waste from the night before, I force down a tall glass of water and fill up the plastic bowls I have been using for the dogs with food and water. Spencer and Chica seem pretty tamed - maybe Kathryn had done me a solid and brought them outside while I was withering away on the half-flated air mattress. I have to find a way to thank her once all of this is over. She has been a very good friend to let me just barge in with all my baggage, even if she isn’t even half aware of that baggage. 

Remembering another basic human need I should address, I pull out my phone and skip past the notifications daunting over me to place an order for the first greasy restaurant to pop up on my Postmates. Maybe a roast beef sandwich and fries isn’t typically breakfast food, but I know it will probably do wonders for my hangover right now. Also, it is well past breakfast time. 

As I wait for my order to be fulfilled, I plop down at the kitchen table and look back at the text from “Mark”. 

How do you respond to a demon that has possessed the body of your boyfriend? Do I just tell him to fuck off and block his calls? Will he kill me if he knows I know? Judging by last night, doesn’t he already know I know? Would he know that I know he knows? My headaches more at the thought. How much of Mark’s knowledge does he have? I would imagine that if he wanted to kill me, he would have barged on Kathryn’s apartment door by now, Jack Nicholson style with Mark’s tactical shovel or something. What’s the use in texting? 

None of my previous millennial dilemmas have ever prepared me for this situation, shockingly enough. 

I start typing, trying to come up with something to say.

_ I’m super swamped today, sorry! _

No, that’s stupid. I delete the message quickly before hastily typing a new one.

_ Maybe later need to run errands. _

What errands would I need to run? Idiot. I delete and try again.

_ Hey I know you're a demon and you killed my actual boyfriend Mark who I love a lot so maybe not tonight. _

As if that would ever be able to fly in a million years. Focus, Ethan. This shouldn’t be that hard. Just find some excuse. You’ve flaked on people before, even if you’re not great at it, you should be able to just think of something, right?

_ I’m feeling a little sick today. I think I’m just going to stay home, don’t wanna take any chances. _

Not my best work, but I guess I could take the pandemic to my advantage. It’s reasonable for someone to avoid an interaction if they’re sick, especially in current times, right? I hit send and instantly regret it, but at least I have written something. God, I’m so bad at lying. He’s going to see through it even without me being there in person, but what else am I supposed to do? Confront a possible demon while hungover? Even at peak condition, Mark is still stronger than me, not to mention whatever demon powers this thing has. My best bet is to avoid at all costs, right? 

Once the text is sent, I exit from the app quickly. The last thing I want to do is see when he reads it or, God forbid, those little dots appearing to let me know he’s responding. 

With the other glaring notification on my phone and no breakfast delivered, I have only one more thing to do, as much as I also absolutely do not want to do it. 

I open the voicemail from Linda and listen.

*

I never had noticed before how much Mark liked to hum in the car. Even before Unus Annus, I spent enough time around the guy that I must have encountered it a million times before, but for some reason it took our daily video project for me to really notice it. By this day, it had become a relaxing end to my day, where I could stare out the car window at the L.A. streetlights passing us by while Mark’s low hum followed the lead of the song playing softly on his car radio. 

Tonight had gone later than most of our “location” shoots, since we had to wait until the sun was completely down before filming could begin. While I tend to be a night owl as it is, I still felt drained working so late into the evening. 

My gaze moved back towards my partner at the wheel. There were lines in his hair where the headlamp had been strapped around his head. The look was oddly cute; the way that the straps had dented his hair now caused the longer strands towards the front to swoop upward at the tips. I had to resist any urges I had in that moment to reach over and play with his hair, considering that probably would not be the best move when both our lives depended on Mark’s driving ability. 

Noticing the way I watched him, Mark glanced over in my direction. “What’cha you looking at? Is there a ghost fly in my hair or something?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, but I thought you were keeping him there on purpose.”

“I am, I thought he would be a good addition to my household, y’know?”

“Really? What are you going to name him?”

“Ethan.”

“Oh, fuck you.” 

Mark smiled as the short bit ended. If I had been noticeably staring at him before because of his cute, swoopy-boy hair, then my eyes must have turned into full-on red cartoon eyes seeing him smile. It’s hard to believe sometimes that someone as handsome and smart as him ever gave me a second glance let alone asked me to be his boyfriend. I reached over to his hand resting on top of the gear shift, reminding myself that this was actually my reality. 

“No ghost flies in your hair,” I said softly. “Guess we need to get a refund from that lady. What was her name again?”

“Linda.”

“Oh, right, right.” I turned my head back to face forward, once again watching the streetlights pass us by while keeping my hand on top of Mark’s. After a few moments, he dropped his grip on the shift to lace his fingers with mine. “Hey, can I ask you something kind of random?”

He glanced in my direction again. “Shoot.”

“Do you actually believe in that stuff? In ghosts and all that?”

There was a pointed pause after that before Mark gave his calculated response. “Not. . . exactly.”

“What do you mean by ‘not exactly’?” I asked, cocking my head slightly.

Generally, I figured that Mark and I had a similar perspective in this area. I knew that neither of us had ever been particularly religious in adulthood, though it wasn’t a conversation that we had often. I wondered in that split second if maybe I had projected my own opinions onto Mark. 

“Well, I definitely don’t believe in all of that.” He gestured his hand backward towards where we had come from. “I mean, the lady seems nice and all, so I would never question her and her mini ghost robots, or whatever. It doesn’t seem too plausible to me that it would be that simple to just reach out and talk to the dead. I think a lot of it comes from wishful thinking, you know? I know when my dad died I was trying to look for signs everywhere that he was still with me, but I think a lot of us just want to feel like the people we love are still with us, right?”

I nodded. I knew I had a similar experience after my grandma had died. Most nights, I would try to look around for shadows on the walls or look into dark hallways, almost hoping to see something, even if it was not her just to know that it was possible for people to still be around. It was a hard thing coping with my logic side telling me that the chances of us having an afterlife are slim to none while still hoping with my heart that I could see her again somehow and somewhere. It’s scary to think that when we lose someone we love, they are really just gone. I squeezed Mark’s hand tightly in that moment, wanting another reminder that he was still there with me.

“But,” Mark began again, glancing down at my hand squeezing his, “part of me just. I have a feeling that it’s not as simple as a blank screen when we go.” He stopped for another long pause, looking as if he was trying to calculate exactly what he would say next. “Somethings I have experienced, I just - I feel that in the end, each of us will get what is coming for us. I don’t know if that counts necessarily as ghosts exist or some kind of grand afterlife, but - I think it could be naive to think that our choices in life won’t matter in the end.”

“Oh, so that’s why you do all those charity streams,” I teased, feeling a need to break some of the tension that had collected in the air. 

I got a small laugh from Mark, but my hope of shifting the mood didn’t pan out the way I hoped. 

“No, I don’t think dunking my head in water and playing with ball gags to raise a couple dollars will necessarily determine my afterlife. I know - “ He broke off for a moment, his face devolving back into the look of calculation. “I - I feel that whatever is set for me is already set for me, as weird as that might sound. I just want to always make sure I’m doing the best I can with the time I have here.” He looked briefly in my direction once more, squeezing my hand lightly and offering me a gentle smile. “I want to make sure I’m doing the best I can for the people I care about.”

In that moment, I couldn’t fight back against the way my chest swelled from his words, as cheesy as they were. Sometimes Mark says things that make me want to roll my eyes completely into my skull and not talk to him for three days, but sometimes Mark also says things that make me want to wrap my arms around him and never let go no matter what responsibilities I should be tending too. For now, I just compromised with myself to lean over and kiss my boyfriend’s cheek. 

“Well, if that’s the case, I just hope that whatever happens next I end up with you.”

A strange reaction passed over his face in response, but it was gone before I could even process it. “Even if I still fart like that ghost animal did?”

“Even if you still fart like the ghost animal did.”

*

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting when I arrived, but it wasn’t this.

The house in front of me looks like it should be the setting of a Hallmark Christmas movie. The outside is painted almost entirely white apart from the door and the lining of the windows being colored a pale sunflower yellow. The porch is empty apart from a white bench with floral printed pillows in the same tone of yellow as the front door. Everything on the outside is immaculate, down to the perfectly clean welcome mat laying in front of the front door. The architecture of the house has the style of an early 20th century farmhouse, but appears so intact that surely it could not be that old. It stands in shockingly stark contrast to the rest of this modern, Glendale neighborhood. A cheerful looking goose statue stares up at me as I approach, ordained in a coat that was brown with colorful turkey feathers on its behind. Still dressed for Thanksgiving, it seems. 

I have to quadruple check the address I had written down in my phone at least ten times before I rang the doorbell.

This is the location that Linda had given me. In response to my panic last night, she had left me a voicemail giving me very specific instructions about someone I should pay a visit to. Little instruction had been given on who exactly this woman was, only that she was Linda’s aunt, “incredibly skilled” in the area that I need help in, and that Linda “learned everything she knows from her.” It was far from being a great lead, but I don’t exactly have a whole lot of choices at this point. I might as well try where I can.

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that this is absolutely  _ not _ the home of a great and powerful clairvoyant and exorcist. Maybe it isn’t too late to just book it and drive off before she opens the door and I offend some nice little old lady.

Before I can humor that thought longer, I come face to face with the nice little old lady. 

In every way that I can imagine, this woman matches the house she resides in. She doesn’t appear as old as I imagined when Linda mentioned her aunt - the woman looks maybe just a few years older than my mom. I can see the family resembles immediately in the woman’s long, curly brown hair sitting gently on her shoulders. She wears large, thick brown rimmed glasses in front of round chestnut eyes. Her eyes are accompanied by one of the warmest smiles I have ever seen as she makes eye contact with me. She is dressed in a typical suburbanite mom uniform: Levi jeans that look like they for sure were purchased in the 90s, a pale pink blouse, and a yellow cardigan that is suspiciously similar to the painting of the door. 

“Hiya there, you must be Ethan.”

God, even her voice is chipper. There’s a thick douse of Midwestern in the tone of her voice as well. No way that this woman hails from California. 

Thoroughly taken aback, I almost forget to respond. “U-uh, yeah. Linda gave me this address. You’re her - her aunt?”

She laughs gently. “Yes. Edith Levitt, clairvoyant, at your service.” She extends a small hand in my direction, and I shake it cautiously. Then again, in this twisted universe where apparently demons exist and they prey on Youtubers, maybe exorcist soccer moms aren’t that wild of a concept. “Come in, let me make you some coffee and we can get to chatting.” She ushers me into the house in a way that implies that she will not take no for an answer when it comes to the coffee. 

Unsurprisingly, the inside of the house has the same flavors as the outside. All of the furniture has the distinct appearance of modern-made pieces that are painted to look like old antiques. Everywhere I look, I see flowers, succulents, and other sorts of greenery - whether in real form sitting in cute, chunky ceramic pots or in patterns on bright carpets, warm curtains, or fragile decorative plates filling up modest china cabinets. I feel like Jack Skellington discovering Christmastown for the first time, in awe that absolutely no one’s dead in this quaint home. 

She guides me into what must be the dining room. It’s not a large space, just enough to fit a circular wooden table covered by a white, embroidered tablecloth and a welcoming pot of red-pink flowers in the middle. Just as she brings me into the room, she disappears off into an adjoining entrance, most likely the kitchen as I hear a pot brewing soon after. Cautiously, I take a seat at the dining room table, still not convinced I shouldn’t just bolt at any second to avoid whatever bizarre, Twilight Zone situation I have gotten myself into this time. 

My body feels like it’s buzzing from anxious restlessness as I sit in the room alone. I try to breathe slowly - in through the mouth and out through the nose, just like I learned - and focus in on the room around me. If I let myself sit with my thoughts for too long, I may very well just internally break down from everything going on inside right now. I let my eyes wander, noticing the salmon color of the walls around me. Scattered around the room are small drawings of red bicycles in wooden frames. I wonder if she herself drew them, knew someone that drew them, or if this lady really bought out a whole store’s collection of bicycle drawings. The easy, silly thought helps to anchor me enough until I hear the woman’s voice calling out from the kitchen. 

“What do you take in your coffee? I have skim milk, sugar, stevia, almond milk, French vanilla creamer, hazelnut creamer, peppermint moch -”

“Just a little skim milk and sugar is fine,” I say quickly, half-worried she might exhaust herself if she continues to list her options. 

Edith ceremoniously enters the room, one black and one white mug in her hand. I almost smile when she hands the black one to me, though I’m certain something like this happening is just a simple coincidence. I don’t really know how to start this conversation with her, so I feel a strong sense of relief when she sits down in the chair besides mine and begins speaking without missing a beat.

“Now, Linda told me some of what was going on earlier. She says you called her pretty late last night sounding rather distraught about a letter you had received from - from a friend. Does that sound right to you, hon?”

Yeah, that’s all a very normal way of putting it.

“Um, yeah, I - that sounds right,” I reply softly, worried to go much deeper than that. I’m afraid somehow I will scare her off by saying too much, despite how ridiculous that thought sounds to the logic-side of my brain.

“She says she knew you boys from almost a year ago when you went on one of her little ghost hunts with her, right?” Edith lets out a chuckle before her light disposition drops slightly. “And she said that there were some concerning things in the letter you got. That your friend had mentioned meeting with a stranger and making a sort of deal a long while back. She said you had also said on the phone that you suspected there could be demonic activity, and with what I hear about the letter, that all seems pretty up to par. Am I following correctly?”

I nod, chewing on the inside of my lip. I grab the black mug in my hands. It’s a little too hot to the touch to hold, but I try to focus on the discomfort of the heat to center myself in this moment. I have got to keep it together. 

“Now, Ethan,” Edith begins softly, leaning in ever so gently, “I don’t need a sixth sense to sense that there are things you might not be sharing. It seems to me like you’re hurting and you’re scared. I want to be able to help you, but to do that you’re going to have to tell me everything about what is going on that you know, whether you’re certain or not.”

I can feel my pulse start to accelerate. I grip onto the coffee mug a little bit tighter, even as the outside starts to make my skin ache. 

“Wh-what do you want to know? Where should I start?”

She gives me a long look, her round eyes peering deep into mine. 

“Tell me when you first noticed something was off with your friend, sparing no details.”

With some hesitation, I start to recount the story. I have to backtrack to explain some of the basics at first, including who we were, Unus Annus, and the way Mark had approached doing a year long project together. Nervous about sharing too much with a stranger, I choose to omit everything I can regarding the romantic side of our relationship. I describe Mark as being a close friend and that after quarantine, we had decided to move in together to make filming easier. It’s not entirely wrong, but it’s also not entirely correct. I get a sense that Edith notices the plot holes in my retelling, but I try not to focus too much on that. I explained how the strange behavior began immediately following the live stream and how Mark, seemingly out of nowhere, became disengaged with everyone in his life and reclusive in the household. I find it more challenging as the story goes on to describe the changes in Mark’s persona without getting into our romantic relationship. Still, I notice Edith lean in closer to me as I recount the night where I first saw the red glowing paper weight and heard the strange voices. The concern grows on her initially placid expression as I catch up to the events of the last few days, including my brief stint of peeping into the window to see the glowing red eyes and the strange woman in our home.

Realizing there is only one thing left to share, I hesitate briefly. The letter is in my pocket, and it could probably paint a better picture to her to just share it directly. I try to swallow back my fear of judgment, reminding myself that there are more important things at hand than whatever homophobic comments could be swung at me. Surely she wouldn’t just decide not to help me based on something like this, right? I don’t feel convinced, but I know it will do no good to keep back details anymore.

“A couple of days before - when I was getting my things and getting out of the house, I found this letter - the one I had sent photos of to Linda,” I say as I pull the blue envelope out of my pocket. “I was nervous to read it and I kept putting it off. It was also just sort of weird how I found it. It was just left alone in the storage room where we had kept the props for the channel we had done together. I don’t think either of us had gone in that room since it ended. I didn’t read it until after I had left that night, after I saw whatever was in there talking to that woman.” 

I hand over the letter, averting my gaze so I don’t make eye contact with the kind, older woman. Sitting in uncomfortable silence, I wait for her to finish reading. 

I nurse down a couple long sips of hot coffee, trying not to remind myself that I could bolt at any moment and avoid the rest of this encounter.  _ Focus, Ethan, you dumb fuck.  _

My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I decide to ignore it, scared to look away from Edith’s eyes that were glued to the paper in front of her.

What feels like a year passes before she places the letter onto the table between us. “I see,” she sighs, taking a long sip of her own coffee before looking up at me. “It’s been a very long time since I have dealt with a situation even remotely like this. I never thought I would encounter one again.”

Comforting.

“Ethan, it seems to me like we’re dealing with something more powerful than your typical demon possession. Most possessions can be handled with some ease, just going through the motions of essentially forcing the spirit out of the body so the human soul can take over again. Probably the type of exorcism you might be more aware of, yes? For the most part, the media has some kind of close idea to those sorts of exorcisms. This case is a little different.”

“How different is it?” 

She sighs. “Well, it sounds to me that what we’re dealing with here is a devil rather than a demon. Devil’s are rarer to find, but they’re a lot messier to get rid of from what I know, especially after a deal has been sealed and the person’s soul has been cast away. I’ve never worked on a devil case this far into it, only on helping people try to get out of deals.”

I pick up on the fact that she chose to use the word “try” in that context. 

“Wait - what’s the difference between a demon and a devil?”

Edith looks down at her coffee for a second. “Demons are one type of corrupted spirit. Different spirits can get stuck in the mortal plane for various reasons, but demons are essentially what we would consider the most ‘bad’ of spirits that get stuck. Generally, they are just looking for human bodies as a home, a concrete place for them to do their bidding whether that is getting back at someone in particular or just taking out their anger and aggression on whomever they can. They are dangerous in the sense that they are unpredictable and full of rage that can lead to massacres. 

“Devils, on the other hand, are much more sophisticated. While they are similar in many ways to demons, they are much older spirits. They are corrupted spirits that made it out of the mortal plane but have found their way back here somehow. We don’t know exactly yet how they traveled to our plane - there are a lot of convoluted theories, but I won’t get into that now. The important thing to know is they are much more calculated and thoughtful creatures. They do not seek pain and suffering just for the sake of it like demons do. They seek power, and they get that from making deals with humans and collecting their souls.”

“So Mark really did make a deal with a devil?”

She nods, looking back up at me. “It sounds like that is the case.”

“But why go the long con? Why did the devil just wait around for 8 years and give him his weird genie wish instead of just torturing someone into giving their soul up?”

“Devil magic has limitations. Unlike demons that can just jump into bodies when they like for the most part, devil’s require more of a ritual. They need the soul to be willing in order to give up their body. Souls cannot be taken out of their bodies without their agreement. That’s why devils make the deals they do. They need to make it appealing for the human. Devil deals can take on any form that the devil and the human agree to. Sometimes the time frame isn’t even that long - it all depends on the negotiation, but once the deal is made, it is sealed unless the devil is subdued somehow.”

Closing my eyes for a second, I fight back a fresh wave of nausea that threatens me. Mark really made a deal like this without ever telling me a single thing about it. It seems so much more real in this moment hearing it from another human being as opposed to just my own mental breakdowns and a handwritten letter. How much of the man I loved was really genuinely Mark, and how much was just the magic gifted onto him? Did it really only go as far as giving him a fanbase, or were there aspects of who he was as a person that were fabricated, too? I clench my fist tightly, my nails digging into my palm to help me focus in and get a grip. Now is not the time for yet another existential crisis. 

“Okay,” I say slowly, eyes opening again to lock with Edith’s, “it sure sounds messy dealing with this devil thing, but it also sounds like there is something we can do? Have you ever, um, ‘subdued’ a devil before?”

“Not successfully, unfortunately.” The older woman sighs. “It’s a long shot, but there are some things we can do to stop it from continuing to collect souls and to stop it from feasting on Mark’s if we can get all the right pieces.”

“Is there a way to bring Mark back, too?”

A heavy silence falls over the room for what feels like ages. I study Edith’s face as I wait for her response, but it’s largely unreadable.

“In theory, yes. I’ve never heard of it being done, but there isn’t any reason that it shouldn’t work, I suppose,” she says gently with a detached look in her eyes. “I warn you though, even if it has not felt like much time for us, experiences like this have lasting effects on the soul. The exact extent of what those effects may be is beyond my understanding, but it is something you need to know going into this. He will come back in many ways the man you knew and in many ways not. We don’t really know how much time is passing for him wherever he is trapped.”

My throat tightens, but I swallow back my reactions. “What do we do to stop it?”

“The only way to banish a devil out of our plane is with a ritual where we expel its name. Devils and demons can be controlled through their own names. Few people realize this before it’s too late, but when devils make pacts with humans, they make the agreement using their own name. It’s possible that we could reach out to Mark to see if he can remember and give it to us.”

“Reach out - to Mark?” 

The words don’t add up in my head, but before I can speak more, Edith disappears into the hallway. I hear her footsteps scattering about on the hardwood floor along with the sounds of drawers and closets being scavenged. I am abandoned in the room for a good ten minutes, my head whirling as I wait anxiously for my companion to return. When she does, she comes into the room with her arms full of various trinkets, some recognizable and some very much not. She doesn’t speak until after she drops everything onto the table and begins sorting through the mess.

“Remember earlier - you told me about the red gem the devil was keeping in your friend’s work room? I’m going to need you to start thinking really hard on that and nothing else.” She pulls out an old, leather book from the pile, setting it to the side before starting to arrange a row of stones, all with carvings in a language I don’t recognize. She places a candle in the center of the stones and then lights it with a blue Bic lighter from the pile. “If what I know about devils is correct, that stone is where his soul is being held right now. They always have a physical artifact that acts as a cage for collected spirits. This will be a little bit harder since it’s so far away, but I should, ostensibly, be able to connect with it in a way to allow you to communicate with him. It’s only a strong enough enchantment to allow one speaker, and his soul will respond much better to someone like you than to me. Here, hold this.” She reaches over while I am still struggling to keep up with her onslaught of words, placing a small brace rod in my hand. It has similar letters as the stones on the table.

“What are these letters?”

“Ancient Hebrew,” she answers as she finally settles down with the book, most of the trinkets placed about. “A lot of people have this strange idea that Latin is the big and only language of connecting with spirits and conducting rituals like exorcism, which sure, a lot of people do use Latin phrases. I prefer using something a little bit older, since my people have been performing magic long before any hippies with long hair and sandals were walking on water. Now, hold that tightly and close your eyes, okay?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to say a few words and you need to think about that red gem as hard as you can while holding that piece. If this goes well, you will be able to project yourself into the gem to speak with Mark for a short amount of time. I know this can be a lot to take in, but I need you to focus on the name, okay? You need to get the name from Mark, and you will only have a couple seconds of real-world time. I don’t know exactly how long that will translate to .”

Edith is speaking a mile a minute, or at least that’s how it feels, but still I nod. I have no other choice but to trust whatever this is. The tightening in my throat grows when I think of being able to communicate with Mark’s spirit, whatever that means. I cannot tell if I will see a full-fledged image of Mark just sitting in a glowing red cavern or if it will be more of a ball of light or whatever else souls are. I remind myself the need to focus, that I will most likely be on some kind of cosmic countdown and that I’m on a mission. I cannot just collapse and cry about how much I miss him or demand to ask him all the whys that have been floating around in my head. 

“Are you ready?”

I nod again.

“Okay, close your eyes. Think about the red gem.”

Edith starts to speak in a low tone, but the words are unrecognizable to me. The room begins to grow colder, and I swear that the candle fire becomes brighter, but I do my best not to focus on my surroundings. I think of the glowing stone sitting in the recording room, and I think of the night when I heard the voices calling to me. My chair disappears from underneath me and with a panicking heart, I feel myself falling backwards into nothing. 

*

I wake up in a shallow pool of water. The pleasant farmhouse is gone, and I am left under a starless night sky. There is a small sliver of a crescent moon beaming just enough light down at me for me to see where I am. Not that it reveals much - as I sit up, all that is around me is this shallow pool of water, extending endlessly in every direction I look. I notice as I sit up, that I don’t feel any wetness on my back where I was previously laying in the pool. I reach back to touch my t-shirt, and sure enough, it’s bone dry. Curious, I reach down into the water, touching the cool liquid momentarily before pulling my hand out. Once it exits the water, it’s dry once again. 

Standing up carefully, I circle around in hopes that I will be able to see something indicating where I am. I am met with nothing more than the endless creek I am standing in under the dark sky. There is no way to know exactly if the ritual was a success or not. Am I now “projected” into the devil’s jewel? Or have I ended up somewhere terrible where I will get eaten by some three headed monster? I guess only time will tell, and there’s not exactly any use just standing around. Picking a random direction, I start walking. 

“Hello?”

I call out into the void, but not even an echo responds to me. The silence of the night feels almost suffocating, like I have a blanket over my head separating me from the real outside world. Internally, however, I have a strange sense of numbness inside. I feel as though I  _ should _ be freaking out right now, but I am blankly calm as I continue to stroll through the darkness. 

“Is anyone there?”

The first thing I hear doesn’t exactly come from behind me, but it feels like I’m hearing it in the very back of my head. A sensation that should be incredibly off-putting if I had the capacity to feel off-put. 

As I turn around, I call out his name.

“Mark?”

I don’t see anyone behind me, but when I turn around I am faced with a red-painted wooden door about ten feet away that certainly wasn’t there a second ago. Doing another full turn around, I make sure that nothing else has changed in my settings. Nope - just the mystery door. Feeling emptiness where I expect anxiety, I do not hesitate further as I walk to the door and open it.

I don’t walk through the door as much as I feel like I am dropped again in another foreign territory. The brightness of this new space is almost blinding after traveling through the infinite darkness of where I last was. My eyes adjust after a few painful moments to reveal that the lighting is not quite as bright as I anticipated in reality. It was also pure red.

The ground is cold on my suddenly bare feet and is sharp to the touch - almost reminding me of the sensation of walking on the broken glass bottles. The numbness drains from my body and I am filled with only an immediate deep sadness. I see a figure in the distance, but they’re so far away from me. The melancholy weighs me down and I drop to my knees as the weight of the world falls onto my shoulder. I cannot recall why I feel the way I do any longer, but I feel fat tears start to well up in my eyes as I let out pathetic little sobs. 

I deserve this place. I deserve to sit in this horrible room because I am a bad person. I have let so many bad things happen. There is nothing good about my existence.

Crying louder, I pull at my hair as I collapse over onto myself further.

So stupid, so worthless. I know I was sent here with a purpose, but I am so useless that I have completely forgotten it at this moment. 

A voice calls my name from the distance, but I am too ashamed to look up. I know I am ugly when I cry as I am always ugly and crying only exacerbates the disgusting features I have. If someone is extending a hand out to help me, it is a wasted gesture. I deserve to feel miserable forever.

I see a shadow on the ground of someone approaching me. I crawl backward, pulling away from whoever is trying to come to me. I don’t deserve comfort. In the corner of my eye, I see a hand reaching down towards me.

“Don’t  _ touch _ me!” I cry out, trying to swat blindly at the person, but as soon as they grab my wrist, the red light fades ever so slightly.

I am grounded back in reality as the intense misery stops abruptly. The numbness from before takes over again and I look up to see the person touching me. 

Mark. 

Not exactly the Mark I expected, however. This Mark is one I have never seen in person before. I remember this one from videos I had watched long before, back before I even knew his last name. This Mark is one I had watched in shaky vlogs or heard in Amnesia Let’s Plays when I first started really getting into Youtube. This was a Mark I was very familiar with, having gone back and watched nearly every video on his channel after I first discovered him. This was the Mark who was more of a figment in my imagination, the one I had fantasized about meeting one day but thought would never happen. Compared to the Mark I had last seen, this Mark is so small and so young, face freshly shaven and hair buzzed so short that it makes his ears seem massive. His face was also strangely smooth, not having collected yet the lines that would gradually appear as he ushered in his 30s. This Mark is younger than even I am at this moment, though not by all that much. 

“Ethan?”

Despite his appearance, this Mark still knows who I am. 

“Ethan, what are you doing here? How did you get here?”

Without even thinking, I reach my free hand over to stroke his smooth cheek, mesmerized by this strange version of my partner. While so much of his face looks different, his eyes are exactly the same, like the familiar comfort of coming home after a long vacation. 

“You have my letter,” he mutters. “I can feel it. It’s with you now, isn’t it?”

I nod before realizing how strange that was. “Wait, how do you know I have -”

“You can’t be here, Ethan. It won’t let you stay long, at least I really hope not. What are you doing here?”

I pull back my hand, seeing the genuine concern and fear in Mark’s brown eyes. I remember once again what I am here for, and that I don’t know how much time I have here. “It’s okay. I’m - I’m only kind of here. I won’t be here long, but there’s something I need from you.”

“How did you _ get _ here?”

“It doesn’t matter right now. I need your help. This thing that you made a deal with - we have to stop it. It’s in your body and it’s trying to make more deals.”

Mark’s eyes widened at that. “It’s in my body? But I should be dead. I  _ am _ dead. I thought - Is this not h-?”

I shake my head before cutting him off. “This isn’t the after life. It has you in some weird trap, some red stone, but it’s still out and about pretending to be you, which is why you need to help me to stop it. I need its name, Mark. Do you remember its name?”

“Red stone,” Mark repeats softly, looking down at the ground. “It - It told me its name once. I don’t - I don’t remember -”

“Please, you have to tell me. It’s the only way I can stop it and get you out of here.”

There is a rumbling in the ground beneath us.

“The name - it said its name long ago,” he continues to mutter, appearing to struggle to rack through his brain. “Ethan - I’m sorry - I can’t remember. I can’t remember it. I can’t -”

I almost lose my balance, tumbling onto the younger apparition of my partner. He seems unbothered by the quaking earth beneath us. “Please, you have to remember, I don’t think I have much longer.” I grab hold onto him tightly, hoping that if I can just hold onto him I won’t disappear again. “Please, I know you can do it.”

Mark looks back up at me, and it almost looks like tears are forming in his eyes. “I can’t remember. I’m so sorry.”

I offer up a small smile as the shaking intensifies. “Please. You can do it, you can remember.” I try to pull even closer to him, but staying ahold of him is almost impossible. “You can do it. I love you. Please.”

In a moment of insight, Mark’s eyes light up. He opens his mouth to speak, but it’s already too late as the ground opens underneath me. 

*

I blink, and I’m back in the dining room with Edith. My phone buzzes in my pocket. She watches me with wide eyes, expectantly. 

I shake my head. 

“Oh.”

She leans in, placing her hand upon mine to try and comfort me. 

“Is there- is there any way to go back? It seemed like he almost had it before I left.”

Edith looked down sadly at the brace piece in my other hand. I followed her gaze and saw that the ancient writing was faded. 

My phone buzzes once again in my pocket. I want to throw the damn thing across the room, and maybe if this was my home I would do so, but I have enough manners not to break something despite the rage bubbling up in my stomach. If I had been able to hold on just a little bit longer, I could have gotten it from him, but I couldn’t. 

“Sorry, let me just turn this damn thing off.” 

I pull the phone out of my pocket again, but before I press the power, I see the notifications causing such a ruckus, and I have a really, really dumb idea. 


	6. November spawned a monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Baby, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters are taking a little longer just because I've caught up more on what I have had written in advanced and there's just more to write - so my apologies if it's a little longer than promised before! I'm really having fun with where these chapters are going.
> 
> Looking ahead, I may even start outlining a possible sequel. I really am loving where this story is going and getting to spend more time writing while the world is still as wild as it is. So that may also be something to look forward to in the future~

CW: some mentions of self injury, minor depictions of violence

It’s the damning question that I can never really escape, no matter how far I seem to get in my own career path. It follows me around more than my own shadow.

“So, how did you meet Markiplier?”

In my past, I would get incredibly frustrated by these words. The novelty of being seen as Mark’s friend faded pretty fast when I realized everyone would always see me as an extension of him rather than my own being. Sure, I love Mark and have loved him in almost every way you could love a person since we first started working together. He has changed my life in so many incredible ways, but it has come at a cost. It's a question that negates all the hard work I put into establishing myself as a content creator for years before I flew out to California to become a part of Teamiplier. Overtime, I grew to at least grow more comfortable in accepting this as a part of my life. People will always make whatever mental connections they make, and while it can be infuriating as hell, it is simply something that is, for better or for worse. 

In my present, the most frustrating thing about this question is that it’s a lot more complicated than it appears.

How  _ did _ I meet Mark?

Well, there’s the easy answer. The backflip is usually a cute, cringey go-to I can mention that will make people laugh and answer the question quickly and satisfy my conversation partner. One year, I recorded a short video doing a backflip for Mark and the following year I did it again in front of a whole crowd, solidifying my title as the “Backflip Dude” and, well, we don’t have to go over the rest of that yet again.

Still, those instances really didn’t feel like  _ meeting _ Mark. It was just a passing stunt by a fan for an idol with little more interaction that that. There were so many stages to how I met Mark.

The first time I had ever seen Mark was on my laptop screen when I was just a teenager. It was late on a Sunday night when I really should have been getting to sleep for school in the morning. Instead, I was in the dark of my room on my laptop, deep diving through Amnesia Let’s Plays when I came across Markiplier. One video led to another, and I ended up watching at least a couple hours worth of the man with the mesmerizing voice and bright smile. Little did I know that this one night of computer-induced insomnia and giggling silently at the charismatic man on the screen would very well change the course of my life. The relationship was completely one sided for those first few years, but it was strange feeling a sense of having already known so much about this person from hours of listening to his voice before actually meeting him in person. I would come to meet a lot of the people I looked up to earlier on in my Youtube journey - the Game Grumps, Felix, Sean - but none of it seemed to hit exactly like meeting Mark after so long. Maybe I was always in love with him in a weird, semi creepy fanboy way. 

Then there was when I flew out to L.A. When I was first brought onto edit, Mark took me out for coffee so we could chat about the job as well as just get to know each other at a better level since we would be working together. We had seen each other in passing and had enough mutual connections at this point outside of just me performing stunts in front of him, but this was still the first time I was really just existing as a person with Mark Fischbach. I distinctly remember my heart racing and feeling absolutely disgusting with how sweaty my palms were when he shook my hand. While Mark is known for having moments of genuinity on his channel outside of goofy horror games and campy sketches, I could sense immediately once we sat down at the table together that I was seeing past that outer shell of online “character”. Mark, not Markiplier, was a pretty subdued person. I was not expecting the softness in his voice or the politeness in his tone as he insisted on paying for me despite my protests. The boisterous Youtube man smiled gently as he asked me questions with honest interest about my life, about my family, about how my own channel was going. Although we did touch upon several topics regarding expectations and typical schedules, I was surprised to see that a lot of the conversation had actually been him prompting me to talk and share. For so many years, I was used to taking in what Markiplier said without any back-and-forth, the ultimate one-sided conversation. Sitting in a fancy L.A. cafe with Mark Fischbach asking me what my parents do for a living was incredibly surreal. 

I would come to find out that Mark Fischbachs, like onions, have many layers. While I learned a lot from that first encounter, the full picture of who Mark is had not been painted by that point. Sure, the first year or two I definitely got a good sense of Mark’s ins and outs. We had points of contention early on in the working processes, even though most of our work together has had that layer of chemistry we have come to embrace. After having had difficulty separating his work with his friendships in the past, I could see him often holding back a little too much when I would make mistakes early on which only seemed to make things worse when tensions did occur. Working as an editor had several benchmark moments, sure, but the next layer didn’t come out until tour. 

It was a hard night for me. Tour life was never easy on any of us, and during this night especially when we were halfway through the first leg, I was feeling awful in a way I hadn’t for most of my time since I got to L.A. Looking back, it’s hard to even trace back a starting point for this particular bout of depression, but being on tour exacerbated already difficult emotions. I handled myself well enough in trying to keep things from the rest of the crew, but Mark caught me returning back to our tour bus late one night, a bottle of wine in my coat. After some mild coaxing, Mark had finally gotten me to open up. We ended up sitting on the pavement right outside the bus together as he nonjudgmentally let me nurse some of the wine while we sat and talked. Our relationship had never been platonically physical outside of fun bits in front of cameras until Mark put his arm around me and let me, tipsy and miserable, lean into him. It was a cold night and he must have been shivering outside in just a hoodie and without the alcohol jacket that kept me feeling warm. I felt a different presence from Mark that night. This Mark was not just quiet but seemed so concerned for me in a way no one really had before. He continued to “check-up” on me throughout the tour, dropping that second layer to show this nurturing and compassionate Mark behind all the typical sarcasm and banter. That night outside was the first time he told me he loved me - platonically - when it was just the two of us. 

Then came our relationship. If friend Mark was vastly different from the Markiplier I had come to understand, boyfriend Mark was leagues beyond that. The layers that had seemed so distinct to me before were now merged. He would seamlessly go from being the loud, rambunctious personality to cradling me in his arms for hours. It was as if each of the puzzle pieces I had been collecting over the years finally came together. 

Tonight, I am about to meet a very different Mark. 

I have interacted with this Mark before, but again, this feels different. Where I had just been a saddened bystander to this demon - or, rather devil - hiding in my lover’s body and sneaking around to do whatever malicious plans he had, now I am consciously going to interact with him, fully knowing this is not my Mark. 

Edith’s eyes had gone as wide as saucers when I told her about my idea. She tried to beg me to stay at least for a little while longer to talk more, to try and convince me to wait until she could figure out something else, but I knew deep in my heart the insistent texts from “Mark” trying to get me to come over would only lead to a worse situation should I not respond. It was a dumb fucking idea, I won’t lie, but if there was some way I could coax the devil’s name right from the source, I had to try it. If nothing else, I had to respond to Mark before he came looking for me. 

After all, this creature might know that I know the truth, but it doesn’t know the extent of what I know. All he thinks right now is I’m easy prey, but maybe if I can get just one leg up on him, I could even the playing field.

No, it is dumb to think that. This idea is fucking stupid, but there had to be some way I could get the name from him. I can’t just idle around twiddling my thumbs while knowing that there is some glimmer of hope for getting Mark back. 

Before I left, Edith had demanded that I took a few tools to protect myself if I was really going to go through with meeting up with “Mark”. 

“If anything gets out of hand, splash him with this,” she said as she handed me over a slim glass bottle of what looked just like water. “It’s blessed water. It will be enough to stun him if you need to escape for whatever reason. Even if you can only get a little bit on him, any amount will work, okay? And this.” She dug through her pocket to produce what looked like a golden coin. She grabbed my hand and placed the coin in my palm before I could say anything as she spoke a few words in what I assumed was whatever old language she used before. “This will keep anything from tracking you magically. I can’t stop him from getting in a car and driving after you, but at least this way he cannot reach you any better than any other human. No looking glasses or tracking spells. I don’t love this idea of you trying to bait him into a fake deal, but at least have these to protect yourself. Most importantly, have this.” She reached into her pocket and handed what looked like a fairly ordinary business card with only her name and number printed on. “No matter what happens or where you end up, call me so I know you are safe. Even if you are in trouble, please let me know and we will figure something out.”

I reach into my pocket, trying to adjust the vial of water to make it as inconspicuous as possible behind my wallet. At this moment, I am thankful that men’s jeans are so generous with pocket space - if I were wearing women’s jeans, I may as well be doomed. My other pocket still has the blue letter, almost like a good luck token. I almost have a sense of dread when I don’t have it directly on my person, as if it’s just as magical as everything else on me. I can feel the coin right underneath my foot in my socks. I had been so nervous about losing the tiny coin somewhere, that the only place that I really felt secure hiding it was in my sock. It’s uncomfortable and distracting as I walk on the pavement, but at this point I have already committed. 

Unlike last time, my car is parked in the driveway. On the left side, in what used to be my unspoken “spot” before I moved in completely and just started using the other side of the garage. Every step feels harder to move my legs than the last. Down to my very cells, I can feel the urge to run away and hide, but my heart knows it’s already too late to turn back. I made this decision, this stupid fucking decision, and now I am here. I am here because I  _ have _ to be here, to figure out something to do to save the man I love more than anything.

I stop in front of the door and stare at the doorknob for a long second, remembering the last words Edith said to me.

“You will need to stay as focused as you can. There is a reason creatures like this can convince people to give away their souls to eternal damnation and subjugation. When they choose to be, they can be incredibly charismatic, to a point that goes beyond just normal human charm into a mystical type of coercion. It will feel impossible to say no to him at times, but do not forget your intent. The only way you can resist the charm is to keep your mind focused on your goal. And please, as soon as you feel unsafe, use the water and run like hell, okay?”

My heart is pounding in my ears as the terror in my chest reaches up to grip around my throat. Breathing deeply is a struggle as I try my hardest to center myself before I knock on the door. I try to think back to something, to anything that could calm me down.

For the briefest of moments, I allow myself to remember that last night I had with Mark. I bring myself back to the back patio under the night sky, the cool pavement underneath me with my person at my side. I can smell the morning dew already on the grass and the familiar scent of Mark’s shampoo while my head rests on his shoulder, close to where his hair falls. I hear the mellow breeze rustling the leaves on the orange trees, the jingle of dog collars rustling as Spencer and Chica chase each other through the darkness, the sound of my own breath, the sound of my partner’s breath. I look up into Mark’s dark eyes and he looks back into mine. I can almost see the reflection of my pale blue-green in his warm orbs. I see him smile before the memory passes me by and I am back in front of the door. That back patio is just on the other side of this house, but at the same time it is also three hundred light years away. 

I spot a figure moving inside the house not far from the door, so I know I cannot just sit here daydreaming forever. I knock.

I think back to the Mark I saw in the stone. The baby face with his buzz cut hair and smooth skin. Before, I didn’t really have the time to connect the dots, but it dawns on me while I stand there hearing footsteps approaching the door and seeing a familiar shadow approach that there was a reason that form of Mark is what I saw. Just like the patio, Mark’s spirit was so close inside the house, still trapped in that stone upstairs in his recording room, but also infinitely far from me. 

The door opens, and I am greeted by a face I could pick out in any crowd wearing an expression I had never seen before in my life. The smile on this Mark’s face sends a shiver down my spine.

“Ethan.” Even if the expression felt off, hearing my name in that tone of voice makes my knees weak. For a split second, I am no longer a man standing in front of a devil wearing my boyfriend’s skin as a suit. I am Mark’s partner coming home to see him after the longest vacation ever. I want to collapse into his strong embrace, wrap my arms around him, feel his deep warmth and smell his cologne, and let go of everything that has happened, live in bliss and ignorance in a world where we are just two regular guys playing video games for a living. The world that we had lived in four weeks ago. The same tone returns to break my thought spiral. “You seem like you’re feeling better. Come in, I’m so glad you decided to come after all.”

_ You say that as if I had a choice _ . 

In fact, it is odd for him to phrase it like that. The texts I had received while I was with Edith were nearly demanding. “ _ We need to talk immediately. This is important. _ ” “ _ Ethan, I need you to come over here tonight. Respond to me. _ ” “ _ I will come over to Kathryn’s if I need to, but we have to talk tonight. _ ” This creature in Mark’s body is speaking to me with a tone of kindness and care that doesn’t match at all the way he has approached me ever since he took over. The air of sweetness sends my stomach into furious knots. 

He must notice me standing there in what must look like shock.

“Baby, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

_ Don’t you dare fucking do that to me. Don’t you call me “baby” in his voice. You know I know and I know you know, so don’t you dare try to tear me up with his voice.  _

“Sorry, I’ve been spacey today,” I say slowly, finally taking my entrance as he makes room for me to step into the house. It feels wrong to enter this threshold without two dogs trotting over to me in curiosity and excitement. It feels wrong how everything looks exactly as it was when I left, like I have traveled back in time to the day I was kicked out from our home. It feels wrong coming into this house with it being so deathly silent, no dog barks or shouting from upstairs recording sessions or ambient television noises. 

My stomach tightens further when I hear him close the door behind me, fully trapping me into this web. “Would you like some water or anything?”

“I’m fine.” 

I keep my gaze away from him as I follow his lead to the living room. I notice him hesitate before sitting down on the couch where so many videos have been filmed before, waiting to see first where I sat. I try to claim a spot further to the corner to indicate a need for space, but he knowingly inserts himself right beside me, leaving only a couple of inches between us. I am suffocating already from his presence.

He sighs. “You seem so tense. Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you?”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You said you were sick earlier. I could make you some tea or something to help. Why don’t I go do that?”

“Can we just get to talking?”

My voice comes off more irate than I expected, and I sit shocked at my own reaction while “Mark” lets out a gentle chuckle. 

“All right. I wanted to keep the pleasantries a little while longer, but I can tell you just want to get down to business, don’t you?”

Keeping my eyes glued ahead of me, I nod. 

_ You will need to stay as focused as you can. There is a reason creatures like this can convince people to give away their souls to eternal damnation and subjugation. _

How is it already so impossible to keep it together? Even as I try to look away and stay focused, just being this close to Mark stirs something deep inside of me that I can’t simmer back down. I try to focus on breathing in and out deeply, but I fail to ground myself with the simple technique.

“I know what you saw the other night,” he says, finally breaking to the meat of the situation. “I’m sure it has been very hard for you dealing with all your emotions. People like me - we have senses unlike yours. I can taste your fear and grief in the air right now.” A warm hand finds purchase on my shoulder, and I want to melt into a puddle just to get it off of me. I rather be a mess of liquid than a real life person in this situation. “Ethan.” His voice drops to a whisper, adopting a husky edge to it that Mark only uses in one context. “Can you please look at me? I just want to speak to you, well, directly.”

I want to melt into a puddle and cease to exist. I want to rip off every bit of skin that this monster is touching and throw it into the fireplace and watch them turn to ash. I want to scream until I explode and then scream some more until I only exist as a frightening sound in the California night sky. I want to break the glass bottle in my pocket right onto his face - no, into those fake eyes and run away, out of this city, out of this state, out of the whole United fucking States until I reach the south pole or maybe even Mars. I want to punch that face that does _ not _ belong to this thing again and again until it sheds my lover’s appearance and I can finally see the disgusting abomination underneath the human flesh and bones. I want to cry an entire river to the Pacific and then drown myself in my own tears. I want to do literally anything at this moment  _ other _ than look at him.

I look at him.

The inauthenticity in his expression from before is completely gone. All I see when I look at him now is a perfect mask of Mark. My Mark, the Mark that was always mine and has always been mine and will always be mine. The need to reach out for him and hold my partner again makes my heart twist into painful knots. 

“I know you read the letter, Ethan.”

My whole body tenses. I had been working under the entire assumption that this thing did not know about the letter. The fake Mark laughs again, looking me over when he notices this change in my demeanor.

“It’s okay, no need to get freaked out so quickly.” The hand on my shoulder moves down to grasp my bicep gingerly. “I’m surprised, really. I had tried to shred it so many times, but I just kept finding it around the house. Something really wanted you to read it, something frustratingly out of my control. I supposed it doesn’t matter too much now, does it?” He leans in closer to me, enough for me to focus in and watch as the black of his pupils spread out further until his entire eyes are the same deep ebony. “You know what I really am. I didn’t want to get you involved with any of this, but I guess that’s out of our control now, unfortunately.”

Seeing his eyes turn to coal like that should send me running for the hills immediately, but I can’t seem to break eye contact with him, feeling so bizarrely transfixed. Even blinking takes a monumental force of effort. After a few attempts, I allow my eyes to just stay open despite the burning feeling. It hurts less than fighting back against his hypnotic pull. 

It’s almost funny remembering the last time Mark and I had struggled to look into each other’s eyes without blinking. We had made a whole fucking video that was just us being dumbasses and having a staring contest. One of our peek “we could make a video out of a piece of toilet paper and make it funny content” moments. Now it’s not a matter of a stupid game about what videos gets deleted or not. I don’t have a choice anymore of when to concede and there’s only one person here who is winning. 

I think of Edith’s words again. I think of 23-year-old Mark trying to tell me the name before I disappeared. I can almost make out the first syllable his lips were forming in my memory before it’s gone again. 

“Why did you want me here?” I demand, though my tone has lost the fire of anger it had only minutes ago. 

He leans in barely a fraction of an inch closer, but I am too aware of the distance between us growing shorter. “What? You feel so tense right now. Are you afraid I’m going to eat you?” He lets out another low chuckle, eyes returning back to show the whites and the iris. “I’m not here to hurt you. That was never part of my plan, getting unnecessary casualties. I’ve never enjoyed any of the violence like that. You know hurting you now would benefit neither of us.” The hand on my arm grows almost hot to the touch as it moves down my arm towards my wrist and then to grasp my own hand. “You’re in pain, Ethan. I can smell your misery as soon as you came here tonight. I can help you if you let me.”

Everything's coming together oddly perfectly. I should have seen this coming - of course a devil that grows power from deals would be actively trying to make more deals. I don’t even have to try to convince him into it. He was going to make a deal with me from the very start. I wonder if he wanted me to figure it out sooner than I did, just so he could benefit from my despair. 

God, I’d rather he would have just clawed my throat out like a normal monster. 

I should feel ecstatic that I am on my way to find out his name, but every atom of my very being is electrified with a strange mixture of panic and something else I’m scared to name. Longing? Temptation? Desire? Every word I could place to it disgusts and frightens me. If everything is going as planned, why does everything about this situation feel terribly wrong? 

“I know everything Mark did to you.”

Both of his hands are holding mine now as he speaks barely louder than a whisper. 

“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to lie to me.” He moved in closer, our thighs almost touching in a way that simultaneously made my skin crawl and my body ache just to be held by Mark. “I have been here the whole time. Lurking in his shadows, seeing every choice he made and didn’t make. All the things he never really told you about his life.” Mark cocks his head to the side slightly, a look of pity filling his eyes. “I read the letter, too, Ethan. I know it was full of lies, him trying to paint himself to be better than he was by playing martyr, like he always does. He strung you along as his pet for so long without much of a care until his timer started running out. I know the way you looked at him from the moment you two first met. You’ve always adored him - I could sense it on you the same way I can sense your fear now - and he just saw you as another one of his props in his show. He waited until the very end to even truly show you the time of day just so he could leave you alone in the world without a real explanation. Just a piece of paper full of lies and twisted half-truths.” He squeezes my hands lightly, and I notice myself start to lean in towards him. “You had to stand in his shadow for so long. Another one of Markiplier’s friends, right? He wouldn’t even make your relationship public the way he had Amy. Always following his rules to keep up the image of the kind, loyal sidekick. But you deserved so much better than that. You never needed someone like me before to get you where you are. You have natural charm and charisma that he never truly appreciated. In fact, he was jealous of it. He revelled in the moments where he could keep you down to the side, not having to acknowledge how much better you are than him deep down. You’re stronger than he ever could have become.”

With herculean effort, I turn my head and break free from his hypnotic eyes. Everything he is saying strikes at my core in a way I didn’t anticipate. It’s hard to keep my cool about me and not start to buy into his words. 

I am not a prop of Mark’s. I never have been. We were equal partners this past year especially. Mark didn’t see me as just a lesser person to keep on the sidelines, look down upon to feel better about his own choices.

Right?

I think back to the letter, to how Mark discussed trying to leave me with a greater following after Unus Annus ended. Mark had been secretly pulling the strings before Unus Annus to set everything up to be his last hurrah. Was I really an equal partner or just also a pawn in his story? A passion project to suppress his guilt? He had admitted to it in the letter, the feelings of guilt after ties were cut with Matt and Ryan, wanting to make up for his past mistakes. Even if Mark did love me in the end, was it really genuine in the way that I loved him? Or did he still just want to build me up in his image? Use me one more time for a personal gain?

But I am  _ not _ in his image. I am not an extension of Mark, and I never have been. I am my own person who has been working my ass off long before he came into my life and I never needed him. I would have found a way to reach this point somehow, with or without his intervention. I am my own person, and I will never again let him pull any of the strings in my story. 

One of Mark’s hands comes up to softly cup my chin. I don’t resist as he angles my face back towards him. His other hand moves downward to rest on my thigh. 

Several long moments pass as our eyes remain locked. I no longer have the sense of being in my own body but rather floating above as a passive bystander. I should pull away from his touch, but my body has become perfectly content with the familiar touch. 

It feels like home. 

“Mark was so selfish, but you - you’ve always been better than that. You give and give so much of yourself for so little credit constantly. It’s time that you got to be the one making the calls.” He’s even closer, too close, our lips barely apart as I see his pupils start to dilate again, though not quite expanding past the normal limits. “I can give you anything you could ever want, Ethan. I can give you all the success that he had and even more. You can move back in here and stay with me just like this, too. It will be like you have your Mark back, but I can be much better than he has ever been to you.” My breath stops as his lips brush lightly against mine while his voice gets even quieter. “I can give you everything, Ethan. Would you like that?”

I am completely transfixed by his words while I stare deeply into his eyes. All the tension in my body seeps out as I become malleable clay in Mark’s hands. I couldn’t bring myself to resist him at this point even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. I want to give myself over to this dark, seductive force, to sign away everything.

I would be a liar if I denied the fact that I have always been so jealous of everything Mark had. I loved Mark down to my core and I loved working with him in every capacity, but every time I saw what he had - the following, the success, and never having to have a single care about money no matter how much he gave away or spent on frivolous things - jealousy pang into my soul like needles stabbing into the flesh. All I ever wanted was to be seen in that light as my own person, not an extension of Markiplier or a “friend” to any other big name, but to be that person myself. How dare Mark ever tell me he was “disappointed” in me on not doing bigger projects, when he had the comfort of tens of millions of people to back any project he put out there, not to mention the money from consistent millions of views to put together things like Heist. Why should I have to work for almost a decade to get as many subscribers as Mark got in less than two years? 

I’ve always told myself that what mattered most was enjoying my career and just getting to be able to bring good into the world by whatever means I could, but I cannot deny the dark voice in the back of my head that has always coveted what Mark has. How could I not? Standing on the side lines for years watching Markiplier only become more and more famous and do more and more incredible things. Even when we came together for Unus Annus, so many people didn’t see me as me. I was still just Mark’s friend. 

I don’t  _ want _ to just be Mark’s friend. 

“You’re shaking, Ethan,” he whispers against my lips.

I haven’t even noticed until he brings my attention to it how my hands are clenched against my thighs. I silently wonder how long I was lost in my own thoughts. In the time, I almost lost track of how close this Mark was to me.

I should back away. I shouldn’t allow him to get this close to me. He is a literal wolf in sheep's clothing. 

I try to remember. I know I need to focus. I came here with a specific plan, a specific intent, but something about his mere presence is clouding my psyche. It’s worse than any drug or ADHD episode. I need to do something, but god my mind is full of fire and coal-black eyes. For the briefest of moments, I see the flash of a young face in the back of my head. I can’t even focus enough to remember if it was Mark’s face or mine staring at me. 

Focus. I know I need to focus on something. All I can focus on is my urge to press forward, to just close that last gap and press my lips into his and forget everything else. 

He must know - maybe he can read my mind, maybe he can just read my face as easily as the real Mark could. With an unexpected tenderness, he meets my lips as my eyes close.

A noise sounds out from upstairs, so high pitched I don’t even register it at first as Mark’s hand on my thigh squeezes the tender skin. Instinctively, my arms go up to wrap around his neck in a way that’s so familiar and right. Even if it’s only been a month or so since I was last touched like this, it’s like I’ve waited for this for years, a chance to finally breathe with my head above water again. I’m starved for affection that nothing in the world seems important enough to focus on. This is where I need to be. 

The kiss begins kind and gentle, but it deepens quickly into something messier and more passionate. His lips pull at my own in a way that is rougher than Mark ever had in the past, but sends my blood rushing and makes me open up my mouth to allow his tongue inside. The hand on my thigh tightens even more, grip hard enough to leave a bruise and I still want him to grip me tighter. 

He pulls back too soon, even if it’s just to give enough room to speak.

“Won’t you stay with me?” 

_ Yes, god yes. _ My lips quiver as I try to make sense of the situation. I want to say yes, I want to say anything to make him kiss me more. I open my mouth to speak, but I’m cut off before I can make a single sound.

The noise from before spreads, becoming louder and more aggressive. It shrieks through the halls and echoes madly in the room, piercing through the air like the last cries of a dying animal. I keel over when it starts to cause my ears to ache, desperately using my hands to cover them. 

Mark stands up, having just registered the noise as well. The sound does not affect him in the same way it does me, but a look of dumbfounded anger comes to his face. He looks over towards the staircase then down at me. “What is he -” He stops mid-sentence, grabbing me by the collar to hoist me onto my feet with a superhuman strength. Cocking his head, he stares deep into my eyes. “You’ve been hiding something from me, haven’t you?” I am yanked closer to him, but I no longer feel the burning desire to kiss him again. “Answer me.”

  
  


“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He laughs, but it is dry and humorless. “You’re a bad liar, Ethan. You always have been. He wouldn’t be getting upset like this unless he knew something.” The devil’s eyes narrow before the blackness spreads throughout them once more. “You talked to him, didn’t you? Were you really that foolish to try and come to me after speaking with him?”

Well, fuck. 

The noise gets louder still, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. Especially not after I am thrown across the room into the wall, head first. 

Everything goes black for a couple seconds. I am no longer in the living room with the creature, but rather sitting on the back porch again, the real Mark holding my hand. I look up into the sky and a bright flash of red illuminates the night sky.

I wake up again, my head throbbing in pain. Maybe a concussion, but I don’t have time to think about it now. I hear a cracking noise as something starts dripping down my leg. It’s too cold and thin to be blood. My entire body feels as heavy as a ton of bricks, but I know if I stay lying here things can only get worse. Opening my eyes, the dim lights of the room are blinding. The high-pitched sound that had torn into my ears just seconds ago was gone. Across the room, I see the creature in Mark’s skin. His eyes are no longer all black - they are glowing a bright red. 

I touch down to feel the liquid on my thigh. 

“You’re even more brainless than I had thought before, Ethan.” The creature stalked towards me, a strange deep echo following its words. “To try to conspire with him before coming to me.” He stopped right in front of me, the lights in the room flickering behind him, but all I could really see were the glowing red looming from above. “This could have been easy. You could have left and not gotten involved, but now there is no offer for you. You won’t get Mark back where you’re going.”

His fist moves like lightning down to make an impact with my face. He gets one good slam into my cheek, popping something in my jaw before my hand comes up to grab the next hit. The crash of his fist into my hand is enough to snap something. I brace myself for another blow. It never comes.

I look up at the creature when I am not hit again, seeing him grasping his fist that is now steaming from an unknown substance. I glance down to my hand that caught the punch. To the naked eye, it looks dry, but it was the hand that I had reached down to touch the spot where the vial broke in my pocket.

_ It’s blessed water. It will be enough to stun him if you need to escape for whatever reason. Even if you can only get a little bit on him, any amount will work, okay? _

The creature begins to scream in agony as the steam comes from all over his body. “You little fucking bitch. I will  _ skin _ you  _ alive _ .” He glares at me with those bright red eyes, but it’s clear that the pain in his hand is keeping him from moving. 

My vision is dizzy when I stand up, yet I still have my wits about me to reach down again to the spilt water on my thigh. I squeeze my jeans, soaking my hand as much as I can before placing it on his back. 

The scream that emits from him does not come from Mark’s throat but from deep within this creature. Nothing about it sounds even remotely human. The ground below me shakes, and I almost tumble from it but I am able to grab onto the wall where I had collided just moments early. A short look down to where I made impact shows a Ethan’s-head-sized hole in the wall. For a split second, I think back to Mark punching the hall in the wall.

_ I guess we’re even now, huh? _

There’s no time to spare now. I don’t know how long this will keep him down for, and I am not willing to stick around to check.

I make a dash towards the door. 


	7. Boy afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I exited the car was when I came back to my body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, I'm really excited with how the last few chapters are shaping up. I've enjoyed writing this story, but now I really feel like it's going cool places and I have been brainstorming more and more for sequel stuff. Thank you all for all your positive feedback and all the love this story is getting. I've really been using my account sparingly since I got it, so it's really cool that I can come back and still share stories with people, even if my fandoms have changed a lot, haha. 
> 
> As with some of the past chapters, another slight warning:
> 
> CW: substance use, mentions of vomiting

It’s another late night when we got done filming. Once Amy and Evan made their grand exit for the night, Mark and I each took our turns going through some of our nightly unwinding rituals. 

I ceremoniously shrugged off my suit jacket and loosened my tie as I gazed into my reflection in the bedroom mirror. My blue-green eyes were looking darker as the bags under them grew more prominent. In the last week of the channel, sleep had become a hot commodity between last minute filming, editing, and making all the preparations for the live stream to come. No longer could I count on my fingers how many days it had been since I got a full 8 hours of rest. While I had expected this to come as the channel’s days left dwindled, I don’t think I ever was mentally prepared for the kind of grind the last few weeks would become. It’s not to say I don’t work hard on my own channel or that I haven’t worked hard in the past - but having to take on so many simultaneous roles and responsibilities while also still making sure my own channel didn’t completely fall on the back burner soaked up every bit of life I had in me by the end of every day and I was suddenly expected to have a full tank after 4 hours of rest. 

As much as I knew the end of the channel would leave me mourning for a very long time, at that moment I could not wait to have my day-to-day life back. Especially with everything I have gained through this year - more confidence, more ideas, a better work ethic. Not to mention the biggest change of all - being with Mark. I smiled mildly to myself as I thought about how nice it would be to wake up with him on that Saturday morning after all of this was done and just spend the day in bed. It had been so long since either of us had a morning where we didn’t have to immediately get up and start working, if not both of us simultaneously. A lazy day in bed sounded absolutely beautiful. 

I draped the tie onto a hanger, not even bothering to undo it completely knowing it would be going right back on my neck to film tomorrow. Next came the black and scarlet vest followed by the button up and then finally I undid and stepped out of my slacks. Taking off the “Unus” outfit felt so good, like I was shedding a whole layer of dead skin to reveal a fresh Ethan. The fresh feeling wouldn’t last forever, though. Every second was a second closer to when I would have to wear it again. Shaking the thought away, I dug into the dresser to grab comfier clothes - some joggers and a t-shirt. I didn’t even bother checking really to see whose they were by this point. When we weren’t filming, Mark and my clothes got intermingled so much. It was more of an annoyance for Mark who would sometimes accidentally grab a piece of merch we both owned only to realize it was way too tight for him. I, having the privilege of being the slimmer partner, didn’t really have to care much since anything comfortable was a win in my book. Not to mention it felt really nice having that level of domesticity with someone. 

I had only lived with one partner before Mark. An old boyfriend from my early days out in L.A. Living together had been fairly short-lived, especially once I found out that he had been cheating on me before the move in. It’s nothing I like to linger on, but the big “L” I took with my first, well, dude partner definitely created a lot of unnecessary nerves early on with Mark.

Oddly enough, some of those old insecurities had crept back up on me that night. In theory, the Brutally Honest video made a lot of sense with the nature of what we were doing and what the channel was. Of course, there were limits to the “honesty” - we had both made an agreement that our romantic relationship was still off the table. As much as I would love to stop keeping this side of my life hidden from the public, I understood everything still felt very soon on that end and Mark had some concerns about public opinion. Not that there is any shortage of gays and couples on Youtube, but I could see where both coming out and outing ourselves as a couple mid-Unus Annus would be a little much to handle. Neither of us wanted that gaze onto our intimate lives so immediately, either. It’s hard enough how there are people out there that just want to know every detail about everything going in our lives without taking in sex and love in the equation.

However, outside of that big no-no, everything else was fair game. Mark had asked me at least a million times before if I was  _ sure _ there wasn’t anything he didn’t want me to poke at, but I insisted to him that there wasn’t. As much as I know I can be sensitive and have these insecurities, I also know that hiding away from honest opinions can also be detrimental. Maybe in a way it can be a kind of exposure therapy for me, too. Being faced with the reality of what grievances my partner has with me could be healing because maybe it could cool down all the made-up grievances constantly floating in and out of my brain. Though, there was still always the chance that I would feel horrible inside forever because my fears of how people view me could be confirmed into the canon of my life. 

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I kept things together, despite the under current of nerves throughout filming. One major skill I developed throughout the course of Unus Annus was being able to turn myself “on” and “off” for the camera. Sure, it became a meme at times with how Mark was quick to point out that more often than not, my camera-mode was hyper and weird. Sometimes it goes deeper than that, though. Having to balance my dual relationship with Mark as both a comedic partner and a romantic partner had whet my skill of switching gears seamlessly. No longer was I a nervous wreck like in that nude drawing video - although, that was a very unique circumstance all things considered. 

I was also pleasantly surprised with how well I took the criticism when it finally came. Internally, I was clenching everything I had available to clench the second Mark started getting to his “grievances”. When they came, I could tell Mark was starting gentle. Maybe it was partially for the bit, maybe it was because Mark didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Or, maybe it was just because I had imagined them to be so much worse in my head.

Not coming up with enough ideas was one I regularly tried to own up to, so that one really didn’t cut too deep. As much as I wish I could have been better, I know one of the unfortunate side effects of trying to keep a super consistent schedule with a condition as inconsistent as ADHD is like trying to hold water in your hands. It may sound easy at first, but it won’t take long for things to start slipping through the cracks. 

Throughout the filming, I waited anxiously to feel anxious. The most pleasant surprise of them all was that I never felt that deep pit in my stomach I expected. 

I even found myself really getting into the honesty in a way I had not expected, even going deep enough to reveal some of the things I had even discussed in therapy. It was a level of baring my guts that Ethan even 9 months ago wouldn’t have been able to do, but this Ethan that had been making videos every single day for a year was now capable of. 

With the biggest “grievance” thrown my way - Mark sharing his disappointment with me not doing more - there was such an edge of support at the same time. Where I had expected some chastising for my flaws as a creator, he brought his complaints with an air of believing I  _ could _ do better. 

“You have no reason to be afraid, like, have you seen the stuff you make?”

“You have so much potential, just do it.”

“You have the drive for it, you have the talent for it, you have the eye for it, and you have the mind for it.”

My heart fluttered in my chest in a way it hadn’t quite before. Of course, Mark has always been a supportive friend and a supportive boyfriend about my Youtube channel. I know he must have liked my videos to some degree - after all, they were essentially my resume for coming out to work for him in the start - but I don’t think there was ever a moment like that where I felt such genuine belief and support from him.

_ Have you seen the stuff you make? _

Those words would hang in my head for the rest of the night. Mark believed in me in a way I had never really appreciated until that moment. As I shed my Unus skin and made my way to the restroom, splashing warm water in my face in a half-assed routine to get me ready for bed, those words lingered in the back of my brain. 

With my eyes shut, I dried my face with gentle towel pats. Sneaking arms wrapped around my waist from behind, and I kept my eyes shut as I leaned back into the warm embrace. When I opened my eyes and looked ahead into the bathroom mirror, I could see Mark’s face on my shoulder, nuzzling into my neck. I felt so content in that moment that it took me a second longer than it should have to notice the red rim around my partner’s eyes.

I turned around to face him head on, not breaking the tight grip he had on my waist. Offering up a smile that I hoped was comforting, I reached one hand up to cup his cheek. “Is everything okay? You look a little down.”

He gave me a small nod, pulling me just a little bit closer to him.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

My mind flashed back to that moment earlier in the evening. It wasn’t the largest accomplishment to make Markiplier cry on camera, or in any context, for that matter. Mark was one of the biggest saps out there and has never been that shy from showing his feelings in front of an audience. In that moment, however, I got the sense that what I said to him dug a little bit deeper than a typical Mark cry.

He leaned in to press a gentle kiss to my cheek, lingering close to my face. “I don’t think I ever said it enough, but I’m so lucky to have you in my life, y’know that?”

“Well, I guess that means you gotta start saying it more.” I tried to play it off with a joke, but my cheeks still blushed bashfully. 

Mark smiled slightly, but that was all the humoring I got on that one. “I mean it, sincerely.” His hands moved up to rest up onto my shoulders, breaking the close embrace we had in favor of more intense eye contact. It was almost uncomfortable as he seemed to peer deep into my eyes, like I was being analyzed silently. I felt thankful when he finally spoke again. “When all this stuff is over, I want you to remember that. After you said what you said today during filming, I just - I’ve been so in my head and I can’t stop thinking about everything you’ve done for me. Even beyond this past year, you’ve been such a good friend to me from the second I met you. You’re right to point out that I don’t always prioritize relationships, and I just want to let you know that even if I didn’t always show it, you inspired me too, y’know? And I just -” He stopped suddenly, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling a bit. Just, no matter what happens, promise me you’ll remember that?”

He opened his dark eyes once again, locking them with mine in a stare that was much more comfortable. It was no longer him searching in me for some answer but rather just the two of us having a moment together. His words seemed strange as I tried to process what he was saying, but I nod regardless. I can tell it’s the answer that he needs from me right now. 

Looking back, his words make a lot more sense now. A dying man pleading to his lover not to forget how much he loved him. 

*

Very few times in my life have I felt truly out of my body. I tried to empathize when I would hear descriptions of friends or just stories about people dissociating, but it was just something that I struggled to get a grasp on. The closest thing I could compare it with were the few times I had allergic reactions. I would reach a point in the process where it just felt like something else was in control, regardless of if I was by myself or with my dad. Ethan Nestor would be going through the motions of getting help or injecting himself with the epipen, but I would be watching from the sidelines. I assumed this was probably the closest I would ever get to the sense of dissociating. 

I don’t know if I could totally call what I experienced tonight dissociating, but if it wasn’t, then maybe it was just another experience closer to that.

I can’t call it blacking out because when I think back, I can remember most of what happened, but from the second I made it into my car to walking into this motel room, I was not in my body and I was not in control. Jesus had literally taken the wheel as I turned my car key in the ignition and sped out of the driveway. It was sheer luck that no one was on the street because I was not taking in any of my surroundings as my panicked body focused only on escaping the house and escaping the area. There were familiar glowing red eyes staring at me through the window as I drove off. 

My mind felt blank as my hands and feet maneuvered the car. I didn’t have the wherewithal to even look for street names or try to type in an address of somewhere to go. I just drove. 

At some point I got onto the highway. Exit signs and trucks passed me by like blurs. My body pulled me forward, and I just remained in the passenger seat. The sky had turned black long before I left the house, leaving me unsure of even the time of night. I kept driving and driving until my gas light turned on, and then took the first exit. My body clenched at the idea of pulling into a gas station and standing out in the open, so instead I just found the first, cheapest looking motel and pulled in. 

When I exited the car was when I came back to my body.

I still feel an impending sense of doom being out of the safety of my vehicle, as if somehow that thing could have followed me all the way here. A quick search of my surroundings reveals very few people outside of a couple of truckers also pulling in, probably using this as a place to stay. I can’t imagine that I’m the typical clientele for a dingy motel right off the highway. Still, it’s probably the safest place for me to be right now, then. I will have to call Kathryn and make up some kind of excuse for my absence, but my brain is still whirling around from the whole encounter. 

A quick check to my phone reveals that I am somewhere close to Bakersfield, about two hours from home. A safe enough distance, I hope. I still feel the coin pressing uncomfortably on my foot when I take a step towards the front office of the motel, a reassurance that no hellish magic could be used to find me. I should be safe. There’s no way he could track me down, right? Why do I still feel like I have a sword hanging over my head?

I get curious looks from the older woman running the front desk, but I try not to loiter around there too long before getting my room and going in there. Once I’m in the room, I pull the blinds closed and use all three locks on the door to secure it. 

In any other condition, this room would have grossed me out completely. There is a hanging smell of cigarette smoke in the air and suspicious stains on the carpet that look like they would be sticky to the touch. Sitting down on the bed, I am met with the strong smell of heavy bleach on the comforter and the shriek of old box springs under the mattress. The thin walls allow me to hear almost word for word the re-run of The Andy Griffith show playing at what had to be pretty close to max volume from the room right next to me. 

As offensive as this room is to almost all of my senses, I struggle to stay present in this moment. All I can think about is that house and that face and the way he touched me. 

I can still feel those hands on my face and thighs, the way his kiss tasted so sweet like pure honey against my fragile lips. The thoughts that had captured my entire body, wanting to give in, wanting to give up, wanting to let go of myself. I feel disgusted with myself for having let me guard down so poorly and let that monster put Mark’s hands on me. I remain sitting on the edge of the bed for far too long, thinking back as tears start to pour down my cheeks and neck.

I fucked up. I fucked up massively and terribly and now not only can I not save my boyfriend but I cannot save myself either. I’m alone in the armpit of California in a shitty trucker motel hiding from a devil that wants to skin me alive. I fucked up and now Mark’s soul is trapped and damned forever and I will have to spend the rest of my life running and hiding from a literal hell spawn. In the span of just a few hours because of a dumbass idea where I thought I could play hero, I have thrown away everything I love. 

The memory of Mark in the stone comes back. I see those eyes, those beautiful dark brown eyes, and I break again. My crying becomes broken sobbing as I bury my face into the flat pillow of the bed. Part of me wonders if Mr. Andy Griffith can hear my sounds from the next room over, or if I am being successfully drowned out by classic sitcom dialogue. 

In time, my cries peter off as my other needs come into focus. My hand is throbbing in pain from catching the superhuman punch thrown at me earlier, and my head aches still from my crash into the wall. My stomach reminds me that I am a human who hasn’t eaten since earlier this morning. Above all else, I want more than anything to take a scorching shower to wash off everywhere I was touched by that monster and I know I have no toiletries let alone any other clothes to change into. If I was going to hide out here for the time being, I would definitely need to make some kind of store run.

My stomach turns at the thought of leaving the safety of my motel room, but I know a trip into town is unavoidable. I can be fast - just a quick trip to the nearest Walmart or Target to gather my basic needs. I wouldn’t mind something to drink, either. If I need to camp out in a shitty motel in fear of my life, I think I can justify another black out drunk night. 

I’m lucky enough that the nearest Walmart is just about five minutes down the road from where I’m at now. With little else to do, I step back into my shoes and jacket and make my way to the car. 

Without a doubt, it’s the most I have ever spent at one time at Walmart. Since I really don’t know how long my encampment will last for, I decide to be very liberal with my purchasing. I start off by collecting a small wardrobe for myself to make up for the fact that the only clothes I have are what’s on my person currently as well as an extra hoodie I left in the back of my car. An Unus Annus hoodie, because of course irony likes to haunt me constantly. Or just because at this point I own an insane amount of my own merch, but whatever. I pick out my first bounty quickly: an assortment of t-shirts with the least cringey designs that I could find, a pair of sweatpants that feel oddly soft on the inside, a full pack of boxer briefs, a full pack of socks, and some large pajama pants to have something comfortable to sleep in. I pass by the bin of Christmas pajama sets, spotting a set of pajamas for a human and dog. My heart aches as I remember Spencer and Chica spending the night away from both of their parents. I haven’t looked at my texts in hours, but I’m sure someone is blowing up my phone. I have kind of just disappeared on Kathryn all day, haven’t I?

I really need to contact her. I type up a quick message, trying to come up with some half-assed explanation.

_ Hey, family emergency came up. Taking an unexpected trip. I’m sorry to leave you with the dogs. I owe you the entire world. Ily. _

Hopefully it was vague enough without her sending out a search warrant for me. To help my case, I accompany the text with a very generous Venmo transaction, for “babysitting the kiddos”. 

I see unopened texts from Mark. I immediately turn off my phone, focusing back onto my shopping trip while trying to remain calm and not break down in the middle of this mostly empty Walmart. What hour is it? Definitely late. Thank god for 24/7 grocery stores. 

My next excursion leads me to the toiletries. A toothbrush, toothpaste, mouth wash, face wash, deodorant, and also some soap, shampoo and conditioner since I don’t really trust the dingy motel to have complementary ones. I realize while I mentally run through my daily routine that I do not have my medication on me. Wasn’t I also supposed to have a call with my therapist tomorrow? Maybe it is best that I skip this week - I have no idea how to talk about my life without being seen as delusional at this point. I will just have to continue to suck this all down. Self-medication is far from a good thing, but the only choices I really have right now is to replace my healthy coping mechanism with junk food and booze. Which, in turn, is where I am going next on my journey. 

I bypass the wine this time around, instead just picking something clear and cheap that I know will get the job done quickly. As much as my life is falling apart, I’m not a monster - so I grab a 2-liter of Sprite to go with it as a chaser. I finish my loop around the store by cramming my cart full of every comfort food that I can snack on either write out of the box or pump into the cheap microwave in my room. Usually, I would at least try to be somewhat health conscious while going through the aisles, but all normal adult worries have been thrown out the window as I prepare to bunker down for the foreseeable future. If I want to eat an entire thing of thin Oreos, then dammit, I’m gonna. 

And I’m off. With my cart almost overflowing with snacks, booze, and nondescript clothing, I check out and move swiftly towards my car. I’ve already spent more time out in public than I would have liked, even though the trip was necessary. I cram all the bags in the trunk of my car before returning back to the motel. 

*

The next two days meld into each other. Any regular day-night schedule is thrown out the window as I spend my time switching between my handful of activities.

Channel surfing for hours, not focusing on any show for more than five minutes. Taking a long swig of vodka chased with soda, trying to maintain a steady buzz throughout the time. Inevitably passing out in the middle of trying to enjoy cable television. Waking up from the nap that had led to nightmares of devils and Mark. Trying to muster up the courage to look at my phone and call Edith, only to chicken out. Drink a little more. Shove half a bag of chips in my mouth. Drink a little more. Take a steaming hot shower, scrubbing aggressively at my skin, hoping I could wash away everything that’s happened, but still feeling disgusting every time. Drink a little more. Think about that young face, staring up at me with tears in his eyes because I let him down. Drink a little more. Vomit up chips and cookies into the toilet bowl, trying not to focus too much on the mold and cracks on the porcelain. Pass out next to the toilet, only to wake up screaming as a Mark-shaped monster stabs me in the stomach. Channel surf. 

I hate myself for being such a coward to lay around, waiting to die. I hate myself for being stupid enough to think I could take on a devil all alone. I hate myself for fucking up. 

Sometimes my mind clears enough to have thoughts other than self-pity, self-hatred, and grief for my partner who is never coming back. I think back to that night, to the strange noise that had broken me from the spell of the devil’s kiss. How suddenly “Mark” seemed to turn on me after the noise screeched through the house. Could that have been Mark reaching out from within the stone? It must have been, right? I wonder how much Mark could see into the real world. Had he seen me there, with that monster that had killed him, letting him stick his tongue down my throat?

My stomach turns at the thought. How could I have let Mark down like that?

The self-hatred reignites. Every time I think I have cried all the tears that I can, thoughts like these reopen the floodgates and free the deluge from my eyes. I wasn’t strong enough. I’m not strong enough. I let my guard down and now I’m just waiting to die. 

I should call Edith. I should tell her what happened, let her know I’m okay, at least for the moment. Maybe she knows someone better that could stop this thing. Anytime I try to muster up the will, I just can’t do it. 

My generous bottle of booze runs empty quicker than I expect. Frustrated when I can’t coax out another shot or even drop to keep me from coming down, I throw the bottle across the room, into the wall. It falls to the ground unceremoniously. Of course, it was a plastic fucking bottle - that shit was way too cheap to afford to be in something more breakable. 

How long has it been? My phone remains off, only having been turned on a few times to answer small texts from family and Kathryn so I don’t seem like I have died completely. The calls and texts from Mark are mounting, but every time I see the name re-appear, I turn off my phone and place it somewhere far away from me. If I don’t read the messages, then they don’t exist. I’m safe in my little self-made bubble out here. 

I hear loud steps outside the door following my bottle throw, causing me to tense up and grip the covers underneath me tightly. I get a childish impulse to throw the blankets and sheets over my head, as if being hidden would help keep me safe. In fact, it’s probably the only tactic I have. I am without any holy water or even rudimentary weapon. I’m a sitting duck. 

The footsteps pass by my door without pause, continuing on to the other side of the floor. 

I can’t live like this forever. Eventually I will have to find a laundromat nearby and re-up on booze. Eventually people will notice my strange absence from Twitch and Youtube. Eventually Kathryn will pry far enough to know that there is no actual family emergency. I can’t hide from my life forever. My whole career is about being seen and present. 

My heart clenches when I think about the future.  _ Young Youtube Lets Player found dead in his home.  _ How will he do it? A creature like that probably wouldn’t even care if Mark got the blame for it. A shiver runs up my spine.  _ Young Youtube Lets Player found dead in his home at the hands of Youtuber boyfriend. Markiplier, famous horror Lets Players, a murderer?  _ He would go beyond killing Mark and kill the memory of Mark, turn him into a villain who would torture and murder his channel partner, his best friend, his boyfriend. I think of Mark’s mother, the first news she has heard of her son in months being him killing me. I think of his brother, his step-mom, all of his family members having to live forever with this idea of Mark as a secret monster. 

The blue letter sits alone on the bedside table. I don’t know why exactly I reach for it at this moment. It almost feels like a safety blanket - a bizarre connection to Mark. Maybe if Mark could see me sometimes, then he could hear me too? It’s a long shot, probably about the biggest long shot there is, but with my booze run dry and a head full of grief, I start talking to the letter.

“Mark, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my finger running over the first page to trace over some of his words. “I messed up, so bad. This is all my fault. I should have waited, I should have figured something else out, anything. I deserve everything that’s coming my way, but you don’t. You deserved a second chance, and I royally fucked it up. I’m sorry.”

Tears drop onto the page, not enough to smudge the ink but enough to leave warped circles in their wake. The room feels warmer at that moment. Eventually, the warmth, the tears, and the residual alcohol in my system lull me to sleep.

*

_ I blink and I find myself in the house. Our house. It’s morning, I think. A dull, pink-red light shines into the room from outside. I’m laying on the bed, fully clothed and alone. There are no Marks, no dogs, and not a single sound in the whole room. Leaning over, I look towards the digital alarm clock on what was once Mark’s side of the bed. The LED screen is on, but it is completely blank.  _

_ Perplexed by the ambiguous time and the strange light, I get up and make my way towards the window. Where I would usually hear my footsteps on the hardwood, there is continued, deafening silence. Outside the window, I can see our backyard but nothing past it. Where our neighbors’ houses and lawns should be, I only see pink-red light. I see the figure of a person standing by the pool, but for some reason I cannot quite makeout who that person is.  _

_ For a moment, I think I hear the dull ticking of a clock, but when I try to focus on the noise, I can’t hear it any longer.  _

_ Usually, the sight of a shadowy figure in the yard would create panic and fear, but something tells me that I know this person. A strange warmth fills my stomach as I continue to look down at them. I need to see them.  _

_ I turn around, making my way towards the door. The distance from the window to the bedroom door seems to grow longer as I walk, as if the room itself were stretching or maybe I became trapped on a treadmill part way through. In response, I quicken my pace. The room tries to keep up with me, keeping me trapped within its confines, but eventually I move fast enough to start gaining on the door. Growing closer, I reach out desperate fingers. As soon as my pointer finger makes contact with the doorknob, the room stops growing. I expect myself to collide comically into the hard wood, turning into a pancake Ethan, but I don’t. My pace, in time with the room returning to normal physics, slows gracefully to accommodate for the change in environment.  _

_ Grabbing the doorknob firmly, I take a deep breath.  _

_ When I cross through the threshold, I’m outside in the backyard.  _

_ The shadowy figure is standing with their back to me, head positioned so that they must be staring down into the pool. The water is completely still, the pink-red light reflecting off of it. It almost looks more like glass than water.  _

_ I feel a breeze from within the house, pushing me forward towards the figure. I follow it.  _

_ I stop feeling the breeze when I’m about ten feet behind the figure. Despite being so close, I still can’t make out their features at all. I think they’re in a white suit.  _

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ The words escape my mouth before I even have time to process what I’m saying.  _

_ “I’m sorry. I let you down. This is my fault.” _

_ The figure lifts its head, looking directly in front of it now rather than down at the water. “Why do you keep saying that?” _

_ “Because it’s true.” _

_ “No, I don’t think it is.” The figure sighs. “You’ve always been so critical of yourself. It makes me so sad, especially now. You’re taking my blame and putting it onto yourself.” The figure finally turns around. I don’t see my Mark and I don’t see 23-year-old Mark. No, this is another one. This Mark has short black hair, but not too short that he can’t spike it up in the front. He’s a little bit older than the Mark I saw in the stone, but not by much. I recognize his outfit, too. Of course I do - I remember rewatching that video I took about a million times, memorizing every word he said to me. The first time we met in person. Well, “met” is a complicated thing for us. “I should be the one saying sorry. It was my decisions that led to all this, and now you’re having to deal with the mess I left behind. I should have never dragged you into my bullshit. I should have never been so selfish to force you into my life when this was the outcome.” _

_ I shake my head, taking a step closer towards him. “Don’t say that, please. I couldn’t imagine my life without you.” _

_ Mark sighs again, taking a step closer. “I shouldn’t say more. I don’t know how long this will last. There’s something I need to tell you before.” _

_ “What?” _

_ Mark places his hands on my shoulders, smiling slightly. “No matter what happens, I love you, okay? I will always love you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Belhor.” _

_ “Belhor? What’s that?” _

_ He presses another kiss to my lips before I blink and it’s all gone. _


	8. Dance with the devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You really must be desperate to be coming here now.”

_ “Belhor.” _

_ “Belhor? What’s that?” _

_ He presses another kiss to my lips before I blink and it’s all gone. _

I wake up with a start. I’m in the hotel room, head pounding and still fully clothed in my Walmart outfit of a plain gray t-shirt and sweatpants. 

My head is pounding and my hands are shaking as I’m hit with dueling waves of both excited energy and alcohol-induced lethargy. Half of my body is ready to run back to Los Angeles without even putting shoes on while the other half of my body can barely stand the slight glimmer of sunshine spilling in from the edges of the drawn curtains. 

There’s no way that could have just been a dream, right? I couldn’t have just thought that up in my head. It was so vivid, the lines so clear and sharp as if I had watched a movie rather than experienced my own imaginations. 

The name. Belhor. It had to be the name. 

I think back to when I talked with Mark through the stone. The words forming just as I began to vanish from his view. His mouth moving to form that first syllable. Lips pressed together before opening to let out the sound. 

I think back to the pink trombone. That ridiculous fucking website that we had laughed at for at least an hour, just messing around pressing buttons like idiots. I remember how you needed the lips to form a “b” sound. Not that it really was solid proof of my memories lining up, but I couldn’t shake the thought from my head. 

How could Mark have reached me here? We had to have a special cone and a whole ritual to just speak to him for a few minutes back at Edith’s place. Was it really possible for him to connect with me hours away?

Edith.

I scramble around to find my phone. It takes me some time of digging through the sheets and trash that I had allowed to pile around me on the dingy hotel bed. Eventually, I spot the corner of that stupid rectangle peeking out from underneath the fallen sheets. Leaning over, I snatch it and quickly smash at the power button to start it up. 

My hands continue to shake as I stare intently at the LED screen, impatiently glaring at it as if it could make the device come back to life any faster. The flash of the back light coming on definitely does little to appease my growing hangover, but my drive to spread the message of my dream is strong enough to get me to ignore the pounding of my head and the growing nausea in my stomach. I’m sure in due time I will be making my way back to the toilet to discard whatever was left in my stomach. The early signs already show that this will be a monster of a hangover - I really had just been on a continuous bender these past few days here, hadn’t I? Everytime I had started to feel symptoms of sobriety and its consequences, I had merely taken down another sip. Now that I’m without the hair of the dog that bit me, I’m about to get hit with the full impact of my decisions. 

“Come on, come on,” I grumble, pressing rapidly at the call icon, though my phone continued to lag as it booted back up. I hated how much these things stalled when they first started up. You’d think with the fact that we can put people in space and spread information around the globe in seconds that we’d make technology that didn’t need all the time in the world to get ready to function. 

For once, it’s easy to slide past the messages and missed calls from ignored family, concerned friends, and devils trying to eat me alive. Reaching towards my wallet on the nightstand, I know exactly where I left the nondescript business card. With lightning speed and surprising accuracy, I type the numbers into my dial pad. 

It rings only once before I hear her voice on the other end, strained with panic.

“Ethan?!”

“I fou-”

“Where are you? What happened? Why haven’t you called? I’ve been worried sick about you - are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?”

In any other context, I think I would be touched by the reaction. There is specific intonation in her frantic questioning that I have only heard in my mom’s voice before. I think back for a second to try and remember if I had asked her if she had her own family, outside of her niece, of course. I don’t remember seeing any photos of children or partners in the house. 

“I’m okay - I have something to share -”

“Where are you?”

“I’m up north, hiding out. Listen, things got a little out of hand the other day, so I had to get out of town to be safe and -”

“How far north? Why didn’t you call me? Are you safe?”

“Yes, I’m okay. I’m about two hours north, near Bakersfield. I - I’m sorry, I should have called, I was just - Listen, I think I have the name now.”

“Were you able to get the name out of him?”

“No, not exactly. I think Mark gave it to me.”

“He gave it to you? Listen, whatever it is, just come back here as soon as you can so we can talk about this. You’ll be safe in my house, I have it heavily safe guarded already and I’ll be sure to prepare to make sure nothing that isn’t human is getting in, okay? Do you still have that coin?”

*

I never liked thinking about the future. It was always a sore spot of anxiety when people would try to ask me questions about it. I first noticed it in high school when the poking and prodding about my future really began.

_ What do you want to be when you grow up?  _

_ Where are you thinking of going to school?  _

_ Do you think you’ll get a gymnastics scholarship? Do you think you’re gonna play when you’re in college? What are you going to major in college? Are you going to go to a school in New England? Are you going to go to a school close to home? Have you heard about this program at that school? What about that team at that other school? When are you going to start applying? What do you mean you haven’t started working on the essays yet? _

It felt exhausting, especially when so much of my head was just shouting “I don’t know!” whenever these questions came up, but I was far too shy to be direct and too kind to be aggressive to nosy family, teachers, and peers. 

And I really didn’t know. My stomach would twist into knots whenever I tried to think about life beyond the simplicity of high school. A lot of the things I was into and liked seemed pretty silly compared to everyone else. I had been getting into building up my channel, but I knew if I tried to tell people I wanted to do Youtube for a living, they would roll their eyes at me and try to convince me into a “real” line of work. I couldn’t see myself wanting to sit down and force myself into four more years of school. The thought of pushing myself into a random career path I didn’t care about - or worse study a random subject that I sorta cared about only to not be able to get a job in that field made me feel like my heart was going to pump so hard it would punch through my ribcage. 

I would get a similar fear when I would think of non-academic futures as well. I couldn’t stand the thought of staying in my hometown, but also the thought of trying to move out scared the hell out of me, too. What if I bite off more than I can chew? What if I try to move out somewhere and make a name for myself only to fail miserably? 

What if I move somewhere and get some success only to find out that I hate that life and I don’t want to live there? What if I settle down with someone, start a family, and then wake up one day to realize I am miserable and want none of this? What if I settle down with someone, start a family, and  _ they _ wake up one day and realize they don’t want me? 

There was so much uncertainty, so much room for failure. Sometimes I would have panic attacks when I would think too far about it. Like, one time in homeroom we started talking a little too much about SAT scores and people’s plans for applying to schools the coming year. Everyone around me seemed so sure and set on places they wanted to go and things they wanted to study and then there was me. Dumb, little Ethan who hadn’t even started thinking about the SAT let alone prep for it. Ethan who could barely name three colleges on the East coast. Ethan who raised his hand to go to the bathroom, forced himself to keep it together, and then proceeded to hyperventilate for at least ten minutes in the narrow confines of the bathroom stall. 

Too many factors. Too much potential failure. Too many things I could not control no matter how hard I tried. 

It got better once I did leave high school with all its arbitrary expectations. It got better once I started having somewhat of a taste of success, but that looming fear of failure never faded. 

There were other things that happened that fed into it, too. The more of a following I got, the more I feared that with so many eyes on me, I would only fall harder eventually and fail in front of a larger audience. 

There was that first relationship in L.A. I tried so hard to be a perfect partner for him. I took everything he said to heart. I tried to be quieter, more restrained, less annoying, more well-dressed, more considerate, less selfish, less Ethan just to make as much room as possible for him. I tried so hard to be everything he wanted because I had never been wanted like that before by someone that the thought of not being wanted anymore was devastating. 

A year and a half into that relationship, and the questions started to come. 

_ How are things going?  _

_ Are you going to move in with each other?  _

_ When are you going to move in with each other? Do you think you’ll ever get engaged? Do you think you’ll get married eventually? Do you see yourself being a parent? Have you ever talked about kids with him? _

It felt ridiculous being asked some of those questions. I thought I was too young for that, but every day I saw more and more of my friends and peers from high school getting engaged or married or pregnant on Facebook. 

I also just couldn’t avoid the panicking feeling when they asked me these things about him. How could I even start worrying about the future? I was too worried about just keeping his interest in the present. And he still cheated on me. 

Despite how much I worked to be the perfect partner, the future still happened outside of my control. He still woke up one day, even if I don’t know exactly when that day was, and decided he wanted someone more than me. Enough to not even bother breaking it off with me first. 

The first time I thought about the future, honestly, truly thought about the future without getting that sinking feeling was at the start of Unus Annus. 

It was that day at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was Mark talking with me about this idea without it being a “I’m going to do this in the future, want to come along for the ride?” but rather a “ _ we _ should do this  _ together _ ”. I had never really taken on a big collaborative project before, in fact I usually shied away from big projects in general because of that fear of failure. What if people hate it? What if I put so much time and energy just to fail? Mark’s eyes glimmered as he spoke, and I felt myself getting excited with this idea of a ridiculous, year long time bomb, that I even began to spit ideas back at him. I remember getting excited about possible names, looking them up until we found that perfect one that made us laugh for what seemed like hours. 

I should have been freaking out when I started actually committing to the idea. I should have found a reason not to continue so I could protect myself, but Mark’s enthusiasm was so infectious. The conversation continued, and I found myself both when I was with Mark and when I wasn’t with Mark thinking about ideas and aesthetics and imagery. What if we did a cool color scheme? What if we each stuck to one color? What if we made breakfast with sex toys? 

Mark brought out so much good in me. Mark was always living in the future, it seemed like. He was always so focused on his next project, on his next video, on cramming in as much work and care into his time as possible for the future pay off. I admired him so much for being able to face uncertainty head on like that. 

I grew excited for the months to come. I grew excited to sit with Mark and Amy, brainstorming and buying the essentials and spending hours talking about the future. I even grew excited to sit with them and just speculate on people’s reactions. 

I was living in the future and for once I was loving it. 

Then came the day that Mark kissed me and a whole new future opened up for me. 

I never rid those nagging voices completely, those fears of being rejected and left in the cold that my ex had left me with, but new voices started to develop beside them. I grew excited to get to know Mark on this new level. I grew excited to think about what it might be like moving in with him. I grew excited thinking about the future when we would spend holidays together. I grew excited thinking about Spencer and Chica being full-time roommates. I grew excited thinking about sitting down at dinner with my parents and Mark. I grew excited thinking about Mark getting to know Andrew more and me getting to know his brother more, too. I grew excited thinking about bigger things than even that. 

What if we got married?

What if we adopted kids together?

What if we retired together? 

Sometimes I would just let myself sit in my thoughts of the future. I would think about our lives long after Youtube and Twitch and all of these things are past us. I would think about us taking our money and having such a nice, early retirement, somewhere calmer and less crowded than L.A. There would be no way we wouldn’t still want to create, but maybe creating would be a lot more laid back in the future. I see flashes of Mark sitting down at a kitchen table with a child, walking them through the same Korean lessons he got from his own mom. I see dogs running around an open backyard. I see myself finally learning how to cook a pie correctly while my aging husband teases me from the other side of the kitchen, poking fun at my techniques. 

I knew in those moments how fucking cheesy it all was, but god there was a part of me that just couldn’t wait to grow up. There was so much future ahead of me and Mark, just waiting for us. 

*

As I sat down in the familiar dining room, I was not prepared for what Edith had to show me.

She had spoken of a magical artifact that had been used to trap and dispel demons and devils for millenia, dating back to Jewish magical practices in the 6th century with roots of the practice going even further to Babylonian religions. I imagined some grand relic, maybe a statue or a special type of blade that could capture a demonic soul inside of it. I imagined something just glowing with power, maybe stained with blood, maybe made partially from bones or from some kind of otherworldly material. Maybe it was a great stake similar to those that were allegedly used on vampires, or something made of pure iron or pure silver or whatever pure substance demons were allergic to or whatever. Was iron a demon thing? No, maybe that was a ghost thing. Mixed messages from movies, TV, video games, and the like all generated these badass images in my head of this great weapon that could banish the devil from my boyfriend’s body. 

I had not imagined Edith coming into the room and placing a ceramic bowl on the table.

“This… this is it?”

She nods. “It’s an incantation bowl. One I found while going through some of my own grandmother’s collection. I haven’t seen it in years, but I found it shortly after you left earlier this week.”

Cautiously, I reach out and pick up the clay piece. It’s heftier than I expected it to be, and upon further exploration, I see that on the inside there are words engraved in a language I don’t recognize tracing the bowl in a spiral towards the center. There is a blank circle in the very middle, about an inch or two thick. “So, uh, what do we do with this, exactly? Smack him over the head with it?” 

The older woman chuckles. “Not unless you want to go and create a new bowl for me.” She reaches over, gingerly taking hold of the piece to hold it in her own hands. “I’ve never used one before, but from what I’ve studied and learned from others is that the bowl works almost as like a net to capture the demon, or in this cas - devil, spirit. In the past, it was used more as a preventive measure for demon attacks. People would bury it beneath their houses to capture demons that might try to haunt their homes, especially Lilith who was always a big concern for families with children.” With the same care, she places the bowl back onto the table between us. “Demons, being more primitive in nature, tend to fall into these traps pretty easily without much say. However, there have been stories of people successfully luring devils into their fold. I’ve never seen it first hand, but my own father claimed to have used one before for that very purpose. Once we capture the devil, we will have to bury it in the earth to seal him away. “

“And then what do we do to get Mark back?”

“That - that will be more experimental.”

I nod, looking down. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s hard to imagine getting to the end of all of this without Mark. Even if we are able to use this magic fucking salad bowl to trap this devil and bury him where he can’t hurt anyone, there’s really no knowing what will happen to Mark. After everything that I’ve been through in this past month, the thought of coming out the other end all alone is terrifying. 

There’s no locking down now, though. I’ve done enough wallowing in self and probably enough damage to my liver to last me a lifetime. 

My eyes hone in on the small scripture painted onto the inside of the bowl. I try to focus on the letters, as if somehow my mind could absorb the ancient language just from sheer concentration. 

“Your family really has been going at this kind of thing for generations, huh?”

She lets out a soft laugh at that. “Not all of us, really. It’s usually just one or two black sheep per generation that pass it onto the next - though I guess there aren’t many black sheep after me other than Linda doing her ghost adventuring, I suppose. Most of my siblings thought my father and I were crazy, but the tradition does go pretty far back. My father insisted that our lineage dates back to early high priests, but there is really no way to know that for certain. I just know we have been practicing magics and, in doing so, trying to help others where we can for some time.”

“This is kind of a weird question, but does this mean like - you all, you know. . .”

Edith tilts her head as I peter off. “Know what?”

“That the Jewish - or like, Judeo-Christian people are right when it comes to the big picture? Or, like, whatever God you all believe in exists?”

It feels awkward to form the question, but it has been something I’ve been wondering in the back of my head for a lot of this. Having been content for so long in my own atheism, knowing that there is definite evil in the world has really thrown a wrench in all that. Fuck, maybe I  _ should _ be going to church or doing something.

“If I’m being honest, I don’t really know.”

“Really?”

She pauses for a second, looking up at the ceiling as she formulates her thoughts. “I know that there is evil, of course, and I know that human spirits are not just destined to die with their bodies. I have seen this in so many forms, as I’m sure you can tell. I have never seen any actual proof of a ‘God’ figure, though or of anything adjacent - angels, heavenly spirits, whatever you would call it. I also know that I have met people with similar practices from all sorts of religions. It seems to me that at the end of the day what matters more is the human energy that goes into the words and practices. While there is a lot of power in incantations and relics that have been used for centuries, I have seen people formulate their own magics just from enough willpower and concentration. I think it’s just easier for some people over others to tap into it, and that’s not necessarily dictated by any culture or language. I would love to believe in a higher power that’s on our side, but I will say, I have a lot of doubt.”

It’s a little shocking to hear Edith say all of this. From the moment I had met her, it felt like a pretty easy assumption that she was devoted to her religion and her God. Hearing that a lot of it was just show and tradition has definitely shaken up my entire understanding. 

After not caring for so long, I find myself starting to really hope for a higher power. Surely there has to be someone out there, right? If there are all these evil creatures lurking in the shadows, there has to be some kind of counterbalance. The idea that it's just humanity versus darkness… It’s even worse to think about than the thought of not getting Mark back. I regret bringing up this subject, seeing as it has done very little to actually distract me from my fears. 

Something on the older woman’s face tells me that she can see how her words affected me. “Well, there is a lot to go over before we make any big plans. Let me make you some coffee, hm? Maybe even start making something for dinner if you’re hungry. I’m sure it’s been a while since you’ve had something homecooked. How about that?”

I smile, giving her a small nod. 

*

“I will be staked out in the back. All you have to do is get him pacified enough for me to come in and start the incantation.”

“Sounds good.”

“Do you have everything I gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“About as ready as I’ll ever be.”

I look towards the familiar house down the street. My eyes dart back to the living room window where the lights are on, worried that there will be glowing red eyes peering out in my direction. Nothing, just the off-yellow glow of fluorescent lighting. 

Taking a deep breath, I face my companion once more. She is wearing a similar ensemble to her typical motherly outfit, but with blacks and greys to help her blend in further. She has a large satchel filled with everything she needs, including a “secret weapon” she has playfully eluded too. The only bright spot on her is a brass coin around her neck attached to a leather necklace. It’s a similar coin to the one I have been sporting in my shoe for far too long. If I ever for whatever reason need to hide from demon tracking in the future, it would probably be good to invest in some kind of bracelet or necklace. Wouldn’t be too hard to get used to wearing more stuff on my wrist every day, considering my allergy bracelet has now become essentially a part of my skin. 

Speaking of things that have essentially become a part of me, I reach into my back pocket to feel for the letter. My good luck charm. 

When everything seems to be accounted for, I take a step back towards where my car is parked. We had both driven here separated but agreed that a quick meet up would help put our minds at ease. I would still drive up to the actual driveway so as to not rouse suspicion from the start. With my hand on the door, I look back to Edith who is still watching me. 

“Hey, um, I don’t think I’ve really expressed this enough, but thank you. Really, thank you. If there’s ever any way that I could repay you - “

She shook her head. “Not even humoring that thought. I always want to help where I can. You’re a sweet boy, Ethan. I hope this won’t be the last we see of each other.”

My lips curl up into a slight smile. “How about next time I get  _ you _ coffee?”

“I think I can allow that.”

I grin at her fully before ducking into the driver’s side of my car. 

I take a long lap around the block and then I take a second long lap around the block.

My thoughts are racing as my fingers grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. At least I assume they are turned white - it’s hard to tell in the dark of the car at night, only the street lights beaming in on me as I pass them by. I consider trying to implement a breathing activity, something to calm my hummingbird heartbeat, but I decide better of it. If I’m going to play the part, maybe I should just embrace the frantic feelings. After all, this thing can sense my emotions on a deeper level. Fear, anxiety, and melancholia are all my friends right now. I let my thoughts wander to the darkest spots of my imagination.

I think of Mark, all alone in the depths of the void in the stone. I think of the strong possibility of never being able to free him. I think of how I had taken all our time together for granted. I think of how much time I had wasted not knowing every second I had with him was numbered. I think of his family who had not been able to see him all year and now they may never see him again. 

The thought of Mark’s mom, the woman who was always smiling and cracking jokes both about and to her son, getting that call. Would I have to be the one to make that call?

I think of what the world might be like without Markiplier. Tens of millions of people following him, many of them in their own tough places just looking for someone to make them laugh. Mark had always tried so hard to make things that could inspire or even just entertain others to make their lives a little bit brighter. How many lives would become just a little bit darker?

As selfish as it is, the thought that keeps hurting me most is still the life I am certain will be darker. If I make it through this unharmed without Mark, I don’t know what to do. Thinking about going on to just create more Youtube videos, trying to resume life as normal, it all feels disgusting and wrong. What’s the point? Even if I tried to put on a face of strength, deny the fact that the two of us had been even closer than two best friends working together so often, I would never be able to escape it. Both well-meaning and not, comments would be bringing him up constantly. His face and name would be everywhere. The internet, at least my corner of it, would be stained by this tragedy for years. Constant reminders like tiny daggers in my stomach every day. 

I would still go on living, but part of me would be lost with Mark. 

I think of the 16-year-old boy sitting in his room watching Amnesia play-throughs on a school night. I think of the kid that  _ had _ to do a backflip for Markiplier. How could that kid still create anything worth while? How could that kid just shake it off and go back to laughing at video games? 

Tears stream out of my now puffy and red eyes as I pull into the driveway. My side of the driveway. My legs move without my brain thinking until I’m standing in front of the door. I knock but there is no answer. As if automatic, I reach into my pocket and pull out my key, inserting it into the lock, but the door is already unlocked. Makes sense - what exactly does a devil have to fear about burglary or home invaders? 

The lights go out as soon as I step into the threshold. Although my eyes take time to adjust, I step forward into the unknown regardless. The door shuts behind me, as if it were slammed by a heavy gust of wind. Before I hear him, I can feel his presence behind me, setting every hair on my body upright.

“You really must be desperate to be coming here now.”

I swallow. “I don’t know what else to do. I have nowhere else to turn, I - I was a fucking idiot before.”

I can feel him stepping closer, just inches away from being pressed up against my back. The heat coming off of his chest would be incredibly distracting if the choked sobs from my car ride weren’t still rocking through me, keeping me at least momentarily in my deep sadness. 

“You must have been prepared. I must say, I am somewhat impressed. Coming to me with holy water and a way to hide from me. I wonder what kind of shop you got those goodies from.”

I feel his breath on the back of my neck. I want to puke, but I try to stifle those emotions. Sad thoughts only. Mark’s mourning mother. Mark’s father who he would never see in the afterlife. Think sad thoughts. 

“You feel miserable, Ethan. I guess whoever gave you those goodies can’t help you much more, can they?”

I try not to feel relieved. I dig deeper to conjure up more sad thoughts. My grandmother dying. Spencer one day dying. Mark never coming back. Mark and I never having the future I had thought of. Me dying alone, uninspired, a washed up has-been. 

I shake my head, looking down towards the ground. 

“So then, why would you come back to me? You could have run away far, far from here. Abandoned everything to have a sweet life where the scary monsters couldn’t get to you.”

Fingers trace my arms ever so slightly. Even through the material of my sweater, the feather-light touch sends a shiver down my spine. 

“I have to get him back. I - I can’t go on without him.”

“How Romeo and Juliet,” he scoffs before leaning to whisper in my ear. “Well, if it’s a deal you want, Ethan, I am happy to oblige, but I won’t be as lenient as last time. I will bring him back, full form, full Mark, for one year. At the end, both of your souls will belong to me.”

I take a step forward, breaking away momentarily from the suffocating aura coming off of Mark’s body. 

“You would do that? Bring him back?”

“Of course, baby. What’s another year for me? I’ve been so patient already.”

“And you would take both of us at the same time? Nobody left behind this time?”

“Not at all. You can have every second in each other’s company.”

I turn around to face the devil head-on. The eyes are completely coal black, but still seem to shine in the moonlight streaming in from the front window. Mark’s long, dark hair hangs around his face, obscuring the sides to only draw more of the focus on the soulless, hellish eyes. 

For the first time in a very long time, I see that Mark is dressed in a gray suit with a white collar popped out. It’s hard not to stare.

“Do you like it? I’m sure you were growing just as tired of the white as I was.” 

“I liked him in white.”

The creature cocks his head to the side before letting out a cold chuckle. “I’m glad you’ve come around, Ethan. I can’t wait to add someone like you to my collection.” 

I swear I hear that buzzing faintly for the briefest second.

_ Mark, please. I have this under control. I think. _

“So it’s settled then, right? I get him back for a year, and then you can take us both. What comes next?”

The creature leans in uncomfortably close. Instinctively, I tense up, increasingly worried that he might try to kiss me again. “Well, in theory we would move onto a blood pact, but I don’t think that’s what you actually came here to do, Ethan.”

The room becomes cold. I can’t tell if the temperature actually drops or if it's just the frigid sensation running through my veins. 

“Wh-wha - ?”

Before the full word could leave my lips, an iron grip clutches my throat and shoves me against the nearest wall. The force of the impact leaves me dizzy, but my vision is still clear enough to see the ebony eyes glaring up at me, a vicious smirk on my lover’s stolen face. 

“A valiant effort, I’ll admit. It must have taken you so much courage coming here to try and face me. What a shame.”

I struggle, trying to get a word out. I need to command him, just to vocalize his name to enchant him, but the tightening hand around my throat didn’t allow me to let out a single sound. 

“I assumed you had spoken to him again. Cute that you’ve played coy so long, but I’m sure he told you a little secret to get to me. Well, lucky for me, all I have to do is pull out those vocal cords and you won’t be saying any names, will you?”

Black dots start to form in the corner of my vision. I hold on tightly to my focus, looking into Mark’s face as an anchor. I know I could go longer than this without breathing. Hell, I had practiced so much with Mark not that long ago underwater. I could last at least two minutes, right? 

With my hands clinging tightly to his wrists for support, I start swinging my legs at the monster in hopes of catching him at least somewhat by surprise. None of my strikes seem to sway him whatsoever. I try to work speedily as I reach one hand down to my pocket, but he catches my wrist with his free hand, batting it away as he reaches hastily into my front pocket, where the vial of blessed water was. 

“Looking for this?” He laughs darkly, tossing it behind him. Faintly, I hear the sound of glass shattering too far away. 

I keep writhing in his grasp, but my movements grow weaker as I deplete the precious air in my system. 

The static edges of my vision close in further. Everything starts slipping away until I hear the familiar sound of the backdoor sliding open followed by a less familiar but distinctive sound of someone shooting a water gun.

I collapse as the hold around my neck is released suddenly. The creature that had previously held me captive is now screeching and blindly rushing towards Edith, who is continuing to spray him with her supersoaker. 

The secret weapon.

The family resembles between her and Linda is stronger now than ever. 

The fury of the devil keeps him pressing on towards her, despite the steam evaporating from his twitching body and the painful sounds coming from him. 

“Belhor, stop!”

Mark’s body comes to a sudden halt, though his head turns back to stare at me with glowing red eyes and a scowl that contorted his features past what I had ever seen before. The face almost looks unrecognizable. 

“Belhor, I _ forbid _ you from hurting that woman.” 

My voice is still shaky and my breath still ragged as I continue to recover, but I try to maintain the conviction in my voice that is required for this to work. It must be working, because the devil turns away from her completely and turns back to me. He makes another lunge for me, but not before I can get another command in.

“Belhor,  _ kneel _ .”

It almost feels like I’m talking to a dog, but I try to push past the silly feeling. Especially as I realize that I have now gotten this hellspawn to its knees in front of me and though it has murderous intent in its eyes, for now, I am the one in charge. 

I hear the buzzing from upstairs once again. 


	9. Memento vivere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What would my life be like if I hadn’t met Mark?

What would my life be like if I hadn’t met Mark?

I want to believe I would have still been able to get where I am today, but it gets hard to really see the truth in that. So much of my success came from him. Where would I be today if Mark had never come into my life?

Would I still be doing Youtube? How many years would I have gone at it if I had never gotten the exposure I needed to be full time? Would I have still found a way to break through so I could pay the bills, or would I still be killing myself trying to work full-time in a restaurant while creating and editing my own videos? If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know if I would have been able to keep up that grind forever, especially if the outlook remained bleak. Eventually something would have had to give. Especially with the waves of depression and anxiety I have had to deal with as someone that did get that “shot” that I had been looking for - it’s hard to imagine me being able to come out the other end with my dream still intact. 

Would I have gotten to a point like Mark had? Would I have been so down and desperate for a life worth living that I would have agreed to a deal like that?

There was one moment, one moment of clarity between drunken stupors during my time in that shit motel that this thought came to me. 

If I found myself in a similar situation, with the world crumbling around me and a mysterious stranger offering to take away all the pain at a price, would I have made the deal?

It seems like one of those hypotheticals that’s easy to gloss over from the outside, just like when scenarios arise about intervening when a crime is happening or being the first person to jump into the pool to save a drowning child. Surely, I would take the moral high ground. Being socialized in an individualistic culture that taught me from the start how important it is to be a hero and a good person on my own ingrained deeply in me that I alone have the skills to resist any kind of temptation. What kind of person would sink so low to something like that?

But, I know the kind of person who would do that. A person I had seen so much strength and morality in for so long. A person who I loved dearly. 

If Mark could say yes, what’s to say someone like me wouldn’t also say yes?

Maybe, in an alternate world, that might have happened. If my stars didn’t align perfectly so Mark and I would start working together, maybe I would have ended up in that spot of desperation. Maybe if I wasn’t lucky enough to befriend one of the most famous Youtubers out there, I would have hit that spot eventually where all I wanted was one shot at my dreams. 

*

It’s a strange rush of power I feel, standing above a devil on his knees for me. 

Sure, that sounds pretty sexual, but I can assure it’s  _ not _ . It’s a feeling I can’t quite place, unlike anything I have felt before. 

I have felt pride in myself at times before. Whenever I got to be a part of big charity streams or put in a lot of work to make something come out great, my heart would definitely grow a size or two. A strong sense of doing good for the world around me, creating small ripples that could make our universe a slightly better place. This - this is a cosmic “doing good” and it is unlike anything. 

“Should have known a rat like you was working with a buddy,” the creature in Mark’s skin growls through barred teeth, red eyes glowing angrily. His bark is much worse than his bite now, though; my command has left him glued to the ground and I can see where he is shaking from the assault of blessed water. 

“Oh, shut up,” Edith sighs, giving him another generous spritz of water from her toy water gun before setting her bag on the coffee table and going through her collection. 

The devil lets out another agonizing scream, collapsing completely onto the ground. In any other situation, I might feel pity for the creature. The repeatedly holy water showers are clearly taking a toll on him, but any time I start to get a sense of sympathy, I remember whose face he is wearing. 

Scorch marks appear on his skin where water hit him directly. I wonder if Mark will have those same scars when he is back. 

The creature looks back towards Edith, eyes simmering back down to their coal black form as he spots her removing the incantation bowl. He lets out a sinister laugh, but it’s still more subdued and scratchy from all the screaming he has been doing.

“You really think something like that will keep me? How pathetic.” He snaps his gaze back towards me. “You can’t keep me trapped for long. You think Mark was my only soul I captured? I have others, so many others that will find you and rip you to shreds. No cages or petty magics --”

He is cut off by another shot from the water gun.

“You’re awfully lippy for a man on his knees.”

I almost giggle at the remark from Edith, who transitions easily back to her work. I want to try and help her set up, but I remember our agreement. She handles the set up, and I keep an eye on the devil. With my eyes glued to the creature on the ground, I circle around him so that I can go to pick up the water gun. 

“This was the secret weapon you kept from me?”

“It’s one that is tried and true. Maybe when you’re experienced like me, you can also have something so powerful.” She winks in my direction, smiling.

“You humans are disgusting.”

I spray a short spritz in the creature's direction after his comment. It shuts him up momentarily while I take my post back to standing in front of him, keeping my “weapon” aimed at him. 

I can see Mark’s body shivering more now, as if the water is leaving him not only in agony but also freezing. It’s hard in the moments when the monster has his eyes closed and it looks like just my Mark. I try to reassure myself with the thought that once this is over, I can embrace my own Mark again and apologize for all the damage I’m having to do right now to his body. I pray silently to whatever god may or may not that Mark won’t have to experience the pain from this experience. 

The creature catches me staring into his eyes once they open.

“You think you’re going to bring him back, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It’s a bad bluff, but I am not in the mood to humor this creature. I glance up towards Edith for a second, impatiently checking her progress. I see her laying out candles in a specific formation and lighting them slowly, whispering to herself. 

“Of course you are. Why wouldn’t you? I can feel your anticipation.”

“I’m anticipating when I can get rid of you for good.”

“You can bring him back from the stone, but you’ll never truly have him back.”

My mind slips back into something Edith had said to me that first day we met. 

_ I warn you though, even if it has not felt like much time for us, experiences like this have lasting effects on the soul. The exact extent of what those effects may be is beyond my understanding, but it is something you need to know going into this. He will come back in many ways the man you knew and in many ways not. _

The creature smiles wickedly. “You know I’m right, don’t you?”

“That’s enough.”

“You do. You can bring Mark back, but all you will have will be shambles. From his mind, his soul has been trapped for years. All alone in a sea of darkness, twisted and tormented as I--”

“That’s  _ enough! _ Belhor, you will  _ not _ speak again!”

Mark’s voice - the creature’s voice is cut off, but he continues to smile up at me with venom in his expression. 

“Ethan?”

I look up towards Edith.

“It’s time.”

With one hand still holding the water gun and one eye glued to the silent figure on the ground, I help Edith to arrange the candles in a circle around the room. After the first lap, she draws a circle of salt around the perimeter of the room, big enough for all three of us and then some, an extra precaution to keep the devil within the space. 

Edith enters the circle wielding the incantation bowl, some stones and strange looking herbs, and a sheet of paper with some kind of notes scribbled onto it. She hands me one of the stones she carries before sprinkling the herbs all around where Mark’s body is stationed. It’s funny, it almost feels like a flower girl tossing petals to create a floral walkway from a bride. I hear her softly chanting to herself in a foreign tongue as she does so. 

The monster starts to make a swipe towards Edith at one point, at which I shoot him with another spritz of holy water. 

The candles flicker all around us once Edith has completed her rotation around Mark’s body. With a booming voice, she begins to recite in the old language I do not understand, reading right from the sheet she had prepared.

The creature starts thrashing around violently, although he still cannot leave the spot where his knees have been stuck to the ground. I dose him in more holy water, but all this does is cause more silent screams to appear on his lips as he moves. 

The ground begins to rumble angrily in time with his thrashing, and although no words are coming from his lips, I start to hear a low droning coming from within the earth itself. Shadows start to spin around us, whispering and growling in a language that sounds alien. No, it sounds like a human language, only as if it were speaking in reverse. I feel a strong sense of deja vu. 

The trembles of the room grow aggressively, until I can hear the sharp sounds of glasses falling from cabinets and books dropping from shelves in nearby rooms. Candles on the edge of the circle start tumbling over, catching the ground on fire. I watch Edith, panic gripping at my chest as I look to her for some kind of direction. I don’t remember any of this from our preparation pep talks. 

She doesn’t look up at me. From where I am standing, her eyes look like they have rolled up into her head as she continues to speak. 

“Edith?” I call out to my companion. I am met with no response, just her continued indecipherable muttering. 

I wonder for a split second what it might feel like to be burned alive. In that same split second, I swear I hear a laugh in the back of my head, but the thought comes and goes quickly as I nearly lose my balance from the quivering ground. I watch the writhing creature in front of me, seeing a smile spread over his stolen face. Almost a mantra, I repeat the same word over and over in my head to try and ground me, both metaphorically and literally.

_ Focus. Focus. Focus. _

The shadows around us spin faster and faster, their voices gaining in volume and multiplying as if more shadows join the fray. They weave in and out of each other in their movements, almost as if they are practicing some kind of modern dance. Crimson lights glow in the gaps between their movements, like ribbons tied to their limbs. It would be beautiful in another context, in literally any other context. The spilt fire spreads out but only in our direction. The heat of the flames inches closer and closer to me, and I drop my focus on the monster in front of me to spin around and spray at the encroaching fire with my blessed water. I’m able to put out some of the flames, but I soon run out of water. The creature, now behind me, laughs in a voice that sounds nothing like Mark. 

The flames shift from a bright orange-yellow to now an otherworldly dark red, matching the lights coming off of the shadows. The shadows and the flames appear to melt together into one large tightening circle, cutting off the air from us and filling the space with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. 

Instead of crawling to me or Edith directly, the fire traces the line of salt perfectly before growing taller until I cannot see the room anymore, only the inferno I am now trapped in. The woman with me is unphased, still lost in her trance as she continues to recite. 

I open my mouth, about to command the devil to stop whatever he is doing, but cinnabar fumes fill my lungs. Keeling over, the smoke chokes me and leaves my eyes watering to the point that I can no longer see. 

All I can hear now is Edith starting to cough as well. 

All I can feel is the ring of fire shrinking around us. 

The flames start to lick at my feet. I manage out a scream at the first feelings of my flesh burning, but suddenly something stops the pain. A warm, not scorching, presence wraps around me, protecting me from the Hell around me. 

The world stops shaking as I hear Edith, through her fits of coughing, scream out one last word. 

*

Before I even open my eyes, I sense a familiar presence beside me. Even as cold and empty as it feels now, I will always have a sixth sense of when Mark’s body is beside me. Blinking back into the real world, I see his face only a foot or two away from my own. He looks uncomfortably still, like a doll or a wax statue. Despite the overwhelming desire I have to reach out and feel for a pulse, I know better than to do that now. There is absolutely nothing in there now. 

I am met with the overwhelming sensation of my head throbbing as I try to lift it off the floor. The action takes quite a bit longer than I would like, almost as if I’ve aged 20 years in the past however-many-minutes I was unconscious. Maybe it was even hours? At this point, there really isn’t any good way to tell. I just need to trust that a whole year hasn’t passed me by. 

Expecting to see the scorched remains of Mark’s beautiful home, I am shocked to see everything looking exactly as it had prior to the start of the ritual. All the candles are unlit, with not even a spec of ash in front of any of them. The floor is not covered in clutter or broken floor boards. I question for a moment if anything I remember from the demonic earthquake ever even happened. The only sign of any difference I see is the incantation bowl laying upright in front of an unconscious Edith glowing a dull red. As I watch, the color fades and fades until all I see is a red figure painted on the bottom of the bowl. 

I leave the body beside me once my attention is drawn back to the older woman. My knees feel as if they will give, but I still push through to get over to where she is. Relief hits me like a wave when I see that she is breathing and doesn’t look hurt. No burn marks, not even any visible bruises. She looks exhausted, though, with deep circles underneath her eyes. I get the feeling that whatever she did took a lot out of her. 

I hesitate for a second, considering an idea. I don’t want to be creepy, but the thought of leaving her on the hard, cold ground feels wrong. Carefully and trying to be as conscientious as I can about where my hands are, I lift her up bridal-style. My knees wobble more, barely able to focus on my own weight let alone another person. I am able to push through just long enough to place her onto the couch cautiously. Her slumber is deep enough that she hardly seems to even notice, but I do feel better having her in a more comfortable spot. I take the throw blanket that had been left draped over the back of the couch and place it on top of her. With everything she has done for me, it all feels like the least I can do. 

Turning back, I look to the body on the floor. 

Where my mind feels blank and unsure of what the hell to do, my body starts making the decisions. I walk up the stairs to Mark’s recording room on the second floor where I remember the stone being. As expected, it’s sitting on the desk, glowing brighter than I had ever seen it glow previously. Still on autopilot, I advance towards the stone, retrieve it, and make my way back downstairs. When I am back on the main floor, I kneel back down next to the lifeless body on the floor. 

_ While there is a lot of power in incantations and relics that have been used for centuries, I have seen people formulate their own magics just from enough willpower and concentration. _

The hand feels icy cold when I touch it, but I fight past the impulse to drop it immediately. Instead, I place the stone in the hand and hold it between my own while I close my eyes. 

*

I am met with the familiar sensation of the ground beneath me disappearing as I fall into nothingness. My hands and knees land first into the shallow pool of water before I open my eyes to see the soft outline of my reflection in the black creek. As before, the water glides off my hands and knees easily, leaving them completely dry as I stand up and look up towards the empty sky. I don’t feel the numbness I felt the last time I traveled here. No, there is a strange sense of calm in me. I feel in control of this situation, as bizarre as it is, and some kind of intuition in the back of my head seems to know what to do next.

I close my eyes and visualize the wooden door with the red paint. The image sits on my mind for a few long seconds before I open my eyes up and it is sitting directly in front of me. Focused and composed, I reach down for the knob and open up the door. 

The dark energy immediately tries to grab a hold of me as I enter the new space. The air around me tries to pull me down into those feelings of sadness and despair that took hold of me last time, but I am able to recognize it this time around. I am stronger than I was before, and I am focused on myself and what I’m here for. As I traverse through the red-lit plane beyond the door, I imagine myself with an aura of protection wrapped around me, a soft blue glow to keep out whatever is trying to eat away at me. With every step, that blue glow starts to manifest around me. 

It feels like seeing through glasses for the first time. This world around me is so much clearer, and I have a sense that I can control it more than it can control me. Somehow, I am tapping into a sense that was always there but I never was able to access before this moment. Where weeks ago these ideas of magic and exorcisms were all silly fantasy, now I am beginning to wonder what else may be possible. If I can get this far on my own, what else might I be able to do?

I hear my name in a distant whisper, like a cool zephyr passing by my ear.

Turning toward the voice, I see a figure in the distance, slumped over itself on the ground. I advance towards the silhouette, recognizing Mark as soon as I’m close enough to see the colors of his face and body. 

It’s my Mark. With his full arms and torso, long black hair hanging almost to his shoulders, stubble shading his chin and jawline, and subtle lines showing full adulthood on his face. I see the slight glimmer of the earring in his left ear, the ear that I pierced. Blinking, the small jewelry distracts me for a moment. I don’t remember him wearing that since I first stuck it in his ear. He was pretty quick to get rid of it, despite me and Amy insisting on how cute it was. He had planned from the start not to keep the piercing, and yet I had still nearly had a panic attack trying to push a needle through my boyfriend’s earlobe. 

My attention on the faux diamond, I almost didn’t notice the painful expression on Mark’s face. Taking a few steps closer, I could see him shivering. No - no, that isn’t him shaking. The actual image of Mark is moving back and forth, almost like a computer glitch.

Something deep inside me knows that if I don’t get Mark back into his body soon, there will not be any second chances. 

He doesn’t react as I place a hand on his shoulder, still hunched over himself with a look of agony on his face.

“Mark? Hey, baby, look at me,” I say, shaking him slightly as I get down onto my knees to be at the same level as him. 

No response. 

I grab both sides of his face with my hands, guide his head upwards to force his eyes on my level. I even brush some of the long, black strands away to make his vision as clear as possible, but his deep, dark eyes are distant, as if he is staring at a point a thousand feet behind me. 

My air of placidity leaves me. Heart thumping in my ears, I keep trying to shake at my partner, slap at his face, do anything to get him to focus on me or to even acknowledge my presence to seemingly no avail.

“Mark, it’s okay. I’m right here. I’m here. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

His blank eyes continue to stare ahead. Tears start to well up in mine. As I stare, I start to notice a gray fogginess spread over his pupils, almost like a cataract. 

“Come on, I’m gonna take you back with me. Everything’s okay now. He’s gone. He’s not gonna hurt us anymore.”

His eyelids start to look heavy. The tormented look starts to melt from his face, replaced by nothingness. 

Was I too late?

“No, no, you’re going to stay right here. You’re not leaving until we leave together.” 

Nothing. 

“Mark, look at me. It’s me, Ethan. I know you can hear me. I need you to come with me. Look at me, please.”

Nothing.

“C’mon, big papa. Let’s go home, yeah?” 

I try to smile, try to make a joke of the situation.

Nothing.

“Please. I love you. D-don’t you dare give up on me now.”

And nothing.

I hear the sobs coming from my body before I feel them. I have already gotten so far, pushed myself past anything I had ever imagined myself capable of. There is no fucking way I got this far just to lose here.

With all the might in my body, I slap him across the face. 

He falls to the ground, body limp like a worn out ragdoll. 

Mark’s body starts to fade, growing ever slowly transparent. 

Desperate and nearly blinded by my own tears, I lift him back up. He looks so pale, so fragile, so lifeless. I struggle to keep him lifted up with how little support I am getting from him. Eventually, I stop trying to hold him upright and just wrap my arms around him, embracing him against my chest completely. Maybe if I can physically just keep a hold on him, he won’t disappear from me again. It’s wishful thinking, but it seems like all I have right now. 

Wishful thinking.

I hear her voice in the back of my head.

_ I have seen people formulate their own magics just from enough willpower and concentration. _

My arms tighten around the languid man in my arms as I take a deep breath.

I focus on the memories I have of Mark.

I focus on the panic attack I nearly had piercing Mark’s ear. I focus on the memory of our first kiss, when Mark leaned in and pressed his lips to mine in the middle of our walk. I focus on the laughter I can still hear in my head as we sit together looking up names in Latin. I focus on driving home from hunting ghosts in a zoo late at night, talking about the afterlife.

I think of the times when we laughed until we cried. I think of the times I got so frustrated that I wanted to quit everything, the channel, the relationship, all of my Youtube career. I think of the anxiety in my belly on my plane ride out to L.A. to start my new life. I think of the great Markiplier coming out to sit with me outside of our parked Tour Bus as I wallowed in self-pity.

I let our life together flash before my eyes.

Shopping for suits. Giggling over sex toys. Delivering each other coffee during late nights of editing. Falling asleep on his shoulder after a twelve hour stretch of recording. Falling asleep in our bed together for the first time after I moved in. Him punching the wall. Me wanting to punch him during Chinese archery. Make up kisses. Make up sex. Facetiming through quarantine. The way his chest felt the first time I saw him again. The awful, awful smell of the sauna during that first post-quarantine video. Eating bugs. Playing with playdough. SCP Amy. Brutal honesty. Mario Kart goo. Improv classes. Trying not to laugh. Dressing up as anime schoolgirls and dosing ourselves in fake blood. Laughing together. Living together. Waking up next to my best friend. Watching the clock tick down on those final seconds of the stream.

The smell of chlorine from the pool. The sound of dog paws on the pavement. The smell of onions in the kitchen. The feeling of cups sucking hickeys into my back. The feeling of my idol watching my do a backflip for him.The feeling of my boss watching over my shoulder as I’m editing. The feeling of my friend kicking me on the face on tour. The feeling of my boyfriend holding me tight, telling me everything's going to be okay. 

My eyes are squeezed shut tightly. All that I need right now is to feel him.

Slowly, the man in my arms fades away, out of my grip. 

  
  


*

_ When I open my eyes, I’m on the back porch with him, sitting on the pavement with my head on his shoulder. The moon hangs low into the night sky, signaling the morning will be sprouting on the opposite horizon soon. I know this scene well. I know I have been here before.  _

_ I feel his lips plant a soft kiss into my hair. He sighs into my hair before pulling back just slightly to speak. _

_ “I can’t believe it’s over. It’s really over.” _

_ “We really did it.” _

_ “Ethan. I wish I had the time to tell you everything. To just tell you that you - you mean the world to me, you know?” _

_ I know what my response was before to this. I know at this moment I should be cracking a joke, poking at his side, keeping up the goofy banter that had characterized our relationship for so long. I know it’s what keeps the scene going, but I deny my next line.  _

_ “It’s okay. We have right now. All we need is right now.” _

_ I blink and we are no longer outside. I am sitting on the couch in the living room. A woman is standing in front of me and Mark is nowhere to be seen. _

_ I have seen this woman before. I don’t remember where. _

_ She takes a step towards me, her eyes glowing an unnatural red. _

_ “I hope you’re happy.” _

_ I blink again and she’s gone. I’m back on the patio with Mark. I enjoy the silent moment, curled up against him. _

*

With an overwhelming sense of deja vu, I wake up alone in my bed. My actual bed - not some shitty, scratchy motel box mattress nor a half-blown up mattress. Our bed.

My entire body aches as I roll out of bed. It doesn’t take long for me to notice I am in the same outfit I had been wearing when I left Bakersfield. I lift the collar of my shirt up to my nose to smell it, and I swear I can still smell the lingering scent of cigarettes from the motel room. Another scent, however, is more prominent through the air and overshadows the smokey residue on my Walmart-brand t-shirt. Someone is making coffee. 

As consciousness sets in more prominently, nervousness sets in with it. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I tip toe towards the door. I notice almost immediately that I’m barefoot. Being without the coin Edith gave me on my person for the first time in days, my anxiety intensifies. The door to the bedroom is ajar, and as I grow closer, I can hear the soft chatter of two voices on the first floor. I freeze in the doorway, listening in to the voices. I can’t make out the words from the hushed tones they use, but it takes little time for me to recognize the voices. 

This could be a trap. Or a hallucination. Or some other big bad thing that my exhausted mind and body can’t come up with right now. 

I proceed with the same caution as before, terrified of the voice in the back of my head that is trying to tell me that maybe, just maybe, everything is okay. 

I remember the gray fog in Mark’s eyes. I remember how cold his body was. 

I hear his laugh when I reach the top of the stairs. Stopping, I lean against the wall, staying hidden in the shadows a second longer. 

“Do you want anything to eat as well? I don’t - I don’t think there’s a whole lot in the cabinets now from what I can remember, but I could order something in or - I think somewhere I have some pancake mix or something?”

“Oh no, this is just fine. Don’t worry at all - I promise I’ll be out of your hair soon enough. I just want to stick around to see how he is when he wakes up.”

“Do you think he’ll be alright?”

“I’m sure he’ll be just fine. You need to focus on getting rest for yourself first.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.”

An aching rings in my chest. Part of me wants to run down there, safe or not, and just fling my arms around him. The smarter part of me knows not to trust the situation just yet, as much as it’s hard not to give in. No matter what, I know I can’t stay up here forever. 

Deep breath in and out.

“Lovely coffee. Where did you get it?”

“It’s funny, actually, one of my friends has his own -”

His voice cuts out as soon as I take the first creaking step onto the stairs. I was hoping that the sound wouldn’t be that noticeable, or at least that they were deep enough into conversation, but I guess not. I have to remind myself to keep breathing as I descend down the stairs and into view of the two people in the kitchen. 

He stares at me with eyes the size of saucers, like a man seeing for the first time, like a flashlight shining into a dark room. My feet glue to the ground right at the end of the stairs, taking in the sight of the wide-eyed Mark standing only a few feet away from Edith who is leaning nonchalantly against one of the counters with a mug of coffee in her hands. In contrast to Mark who looks like he has seen a ghost (ironic enough), Edith welcomes me into the room with her characteristically warm smile. 

“Good morning, sunshine. Guess who I’ve been catching up with?” she says before taking a small sip from the coffee. 

With the two distinct reactions to my presence, I really don’t know what to say next. Smiling mildly at them both, I take a few steps away from the stairs. Even though things seem okay, I still feel so nervous deep in my knotted stomach, but before I can ponder what to do next, he’s in front of me. 

Arms wrap around me, tightly and starving. I am brought back to that moment right before the demonic flames touched my skin when something warm and safe draped itself over me to shield me. 

The realization hits me and something I have been holding back since I left the motel snaps.

I don’t know who cries first. I just know that by the time I start sniffling, I’m feeling his body tensing in a way that only happens when he’s choking back sobs. We’ve been in this position before, in what feels like eons ago, over something so much smaller. Everything that has ever happened to us before is probably going to seem miniscule for a long time, huh?

But it doesn’t matter right now. None of that matters right now because I am home. 

“I-it worked. It really worked,” I murmur, maybe too softly for even Mark to hear. Maybe just for myself after all.

I pull back when I remember we still have company, trying to rub away some of the tears and snot half-hazardly with my sleeve. 

“Geez, who’s cutting onions in here?” I say, in my best impression of Mark’s deep baritone. When I look up at my partner’s face, even through the same absolute mess of tears coating his eyes and cheeks, I see him offering me a genuine grin. 

“I don’t know, but you look like an absolute mess.”

“Me? Oh buddy, just you wait until you look in the mirror.” I laugh, before taking a few steps to where the box of tissues sits on the table. I take my rations before handing it over to Mark. 

I don’t want to have to curb the emotions. I want to cry on him, kiss him, touch every part of his body and then some, but I know that will have to wait. There is time to wait again. 

“Now that you’ve finally woken up,” Mark began as he wiped at his face with probably the third tissue in a row, “would you like to join me and this lovely woman for a cup of coffee?”

And I said yes. And we sit around, like three normal people on a normal morning, drinking coffee together at our kitchen table. And we talk about the weather and unimportant nonsense like that. And we smile and laugh and get to enjoy our time as three normal humans.

I have never realized before how much I have taken such simple things for granted. 

Just as she had said to Mark, Edith did not stick around for much longer. She had not exactly intended to stay the night here, and she had a few appointments coming in the afternoon that she needed to be ready for. In all my madness, I had almost forgotten that she also just worked as a medium. 

While Mark sticks around in the kitchen to finish up his second mug (after being trapped in a magical stone for weeks, I’m not going to judge him on going heavy on the caffeine immediately), I walk with Edith towards the door, continuing some of the easy conversation from the kitchen table. It’s not until we make it to the threshold that the mood changes slightly. 

“You know, some time I would like to hear more about what happened last night. Judging by what I woke up to, it seems like you got up to something, didn’t you?” she says, her voice dropping.

I nod slightly. “I - I don’t totally understand it, but I definitely - I think I tapped into something.”

“I’ve never known anyone to be able to accomplish something like that with so little exposure to the weave. You’ve got a lot of potential for great things, Ethan, if this is ever a path you want to go down.”

The words sink in deep with me. 

I have always thought that the best way I could have an impact on the world was through making others laugh and smile. It’s what drove me to want to do Youtube full time, but maybe there are other ways I could have a positive impact on the world.

“I think, well, maybe that’s also a conversation we could have one day?” 

She beams at me. “I think so. You still owe me that coffee, after all.”

“You got it.”

“Now, don’t you forget to bury that bowl in your yard, okay? And please let me know if there’s anything you need. You have my number, and I expect you to be using it.”

The older woman leans in to me, giving me one of the best hugs I have ever been given, before turning around and walking out the door. 

I return to the kitchen, where I see Mark staring down at his half-full coffee mug, lost in thought. He appears to snap out of the trance, though, as I step into his space and snake my arms around him. He leans into my touch, letting out a soft sigh before we both go silent for a few minutes.

After enough time has passed, Mark places down his mug and returns the embrace. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles softly, resting his head against the crook of my neck. I can feel that he is crying again. 

I rub my hand up and down his back. “It’s okay. It’s over now. We’re gonna be okay.”

I press a kiss to his cheek before he pulls back to look at me. 

“Can we please go get the dogs? I miss Chica so much. Fuck, I need to call my mom, too, don’t I?”

I let out a soft chuckle. “You really do, but let’s take it easy first. You literally just got back in your body, and you’re already thinking about your next action again. Let’s just give it some time, okay?”

With recognizable reluctance, he nods and rests his head back onto my shoulder. It’s a strange feeling. So much of our relationship has been him taking care of me. Mark has always seemed like the put together one, the one who has been through enough to know how to deal with heavy emotions. It’s strange to think that maybe I am going to be the caregiver for a while, but I know it’s a role I will happily accept. 

I squeeze the older man gently, relishing in the fact that I can feel him against me. I never want to let him go again. 

There are so many questions in my mind. So many things I want to ask him about what happened. I want to yell at him for leaving me with that damn letter. I want to know every single thing he experienced. I want to know how he was able to reach out to me as much as he did. 

For now, though, I will just enjoy the silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I have so many feelings posting this last chapter! This has been such a ride. It's been a while since I have been writing for pleasure instead of just for schoolwork, so this has really been great. As I have said before, I plan on adding more into this series. I have started outlining the sequel (and possibly make this a three part series? i got ideas), which will also be multi-chaptered, but with a few big differences. ;) I'm so in love with this story, I hope yall have been able to enjoy it as well! Thank you all for coming along with me on this journey.


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